Hacker launched Anna bug 'as a warning'

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,438182,00.html

Andrew Osborn in Brussels
Thursday February 15, 2001
The Guardian

A young Dutchman confessed yesterday to having engineered the Anna
Kournikova computer virus that brought chaos to millions of machines
around the world this week, saying he believed that the Russian tennis
star deserved the extra attention.

The computer bug, which has been compared to the "I Love You" virus
that paralysed 45m computers last year, asked anyone who received it
to click on a file attachment which appeared to be a picture of the
19-year-old athlete.

When they did so, the virus entered the recipient's email address book
and sent itself to everyone on the list, jamming computer servers
worldwide.

The unidentified 20-year old Dutchman is thought to go by the hacker
nickname "On The Fly".

He has argued on a Dutch website that he carried out the cyber attack
"just because I am a big fan of hers [Kournikova]. She deserves some
attention, doesn't she?"

Bizarrely, he also claimed to have wanted to warn internet users about
the risks of computer viruses. "I never wanted to harm the people who
opened the attachment," he wrote. "But after all, it's their own fault
they got infected."

Concerned about the impact his stunt was causing as it spread he told
his parents in the northern Dutch town of Sneek what he had done and
then turned himself over to the local police.

He could face a four-year jail sentence if the Dutch authorities
decide to charge him with damaging computer software and property.

The police moved swiftly to confiscate all of his computer equipment
for further investigation, but decided to release him on bail pending
a decision on whether to charge him.

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