Fergie's Tech Blog

Teen Charged in AOL Hacks is a Fall Guy, Says Crime Mentor

Kevin Poulsen writes on Threat Level:

Mike "Virus" Nieves the 17-year-old Staten Island kid charged in New York last month for a massive AOL hacking spree, is taking the rap for a lot of AOL hijinks that he had nothing to do with, says "Smokey", a self-professed ringleader in the AOL hax0ring scene who claims to have tutored the teen in the company's arcane systems.

"I was there step by step, telling him everything to do all the way," says Smokey, 21, a New Yorker himself, and the proprietor of AOLGang.com. "He's only been doing this for two years, and I've been doing this since … I was 13 or 14."

Nieves is charged with four felonies and a misdemeanor for allegedly hacking into 60 different AOL employee and contractor accounts using an e-mailed Trojan horse, gaining access, according to the complaint, to "internal AOL computer networks and databases, including customer billing records, addresses and credit card information."

posted by Fergie @ 5/10/2007 12:53:00 PM