“German police have arrested an 18-year-old man suspected of creating the Sasser computer worm, believed to be one of the Internet’s costliest outbreaks of sabotage. Spokesman Frank Federau for the Lower Saxony police said the man was arrested Friday. Federau said the suspect admitted to programing the worm, but authorities did not know if he had created all the versions of it,” Reuters reports.
“‘He made a confession, and the experts at Microsoft have now confirmed that he was the cause of this worm,’ said Federau. He said he did not have any details of how the suspect was found. Surprised at the rapid developments, security experts said this could be the single biggest arrest yet in bringing down a virus-writing gang,” Reuters reports. “Federau said that the man, who lived with his parents near the central German town of Rotenburg, did not have any links with organized crime. But the spokesman could not confirm if the suspect had ties to other worm programers.”
“All the teenager’s computers were confiscated by police but the suspect himself was not in custody, Federau said,” Reuters reports. “Since appearing a week ago, Sasser has wreaked havoc on personal computers running on the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows 2000, NT and XP operating systems, but is expected to slow down as computer users download antivirus patches. The computing underground responsible for hatching worms and viruses has proved a difficult ring to crack for law enforcement. ‘Hopefully this arrest will limit their activities,’ said Mikko Hypponen, antivirus research director at Finnish data security firm F-Secure. ‘If we can start catching these guys, it will certainly put more pressure on existing virus writers.'”
Full article here.
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