Man arrested in Britain in hacking case

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/08/14/hacking.arrest/index.html

August 14, 2001 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI and Scotland Yard announced Tuesday the
arrest of a 24-year old man who they say was responsible for a
computer virus known as the "Leaves worm," which surfaced in early
July in home users' Windows-based computer systems.

In Washington, the FBI said the suspect was taken into custody in the
United Kingdom on July 23, but authorities refused to identify the
nationality of the suspect. They said the arrest was kept secret until
now to avoid compromising an international investigation.

Under British law the suspect's name may not yet be released.

Authorities say the suspect was arrested on charges of "designing and
propagating malicious code, known as the W32-Leave.worm into
Windows-based computer systems." The FBI said home-users' computers
without updated anti-virus software were primarily infected by this
worm.

"This particular worm allowed the intruder access to an infected
system while the victim machine was connected to the Internet,"
authorities said.

Anti-virus groups say the Leaves worm arrived as an e-mail that
appeared to come from Microsoft as a security bulletin. It was
discovered July 9.

The threat assessment for both damage and distribution was rated "low"
by the Symantec AntiVirus Research Center.

The Leaves worm received far less attention than the Code Red Worm
that appeared a few weeks later and prompted warnings from the FBI's
National Infrastructure Protection Center.



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