Fergie's Tech Blog

Dutch Botnet Hacker Appeals Jail Sentence

A WebWereld Netherlands article by Edwin Feldmannm, via PC World, reports that:

The leader of a gang that committed what has been described as the Netherland's biggest cybercrime is appealing his sentence.

The man, a 20 year old from Loon op Zand who has not been named, was sentenced on Jan. 30 to two years in prison and a €9,000 (US$11,691) fine. Prosecutors had been seeking three years imprisonment and a €30,000 fine.

The second hacker, a 28-year-old man from Rijswijk, was given 18 months in prison and fined €4,000. He did not appeal his sentence.

Because one of the men is appealing, the prosecutor also appealed the sentence on Tuesday. "The penalty they were given is a little less then we had asked for. That's why we want to try and raise the jail term," said Desiree Leppens, spokeswoman for the National Public Prosecution Service in Rotterdam.

The two men were found guilty of writing the Toxbot and Wayphisher viruses. They used the Toxbot virus to infect millions of computers in 2005. The virus included a key logger that provided the hackers with user names and passwords of eBay and PayPal accounts, as well as some personal credit-card information. The card information was used to buy equipment including PlayStations consoles, iPods and digital cameras, as well as luxury goods such as Prada shoes.

posted by Fergie @ 2/14/2007 02:43:00 PM