Posted by Virus Bulletin on Jul 25, 2004
Magold author sentenced, Finnish Lasku author arrested.
Last month saw the sentencing of a Hungarian teenager to two years' probation for creating the Magold virus.
Teenager 'László K.' was convicted of unauthorized use of computer systems. Although the teen was sentenced to one year in a juvenile prison, Veszprem City Court commuted the sentence to two years' probation and ordered him to pay 500,000 forints (approx. US$2,400) in court costs. According to a Hungarian newspaper, the teenager told the court that he created the virus to reassure himself that he had some skills after failing several subjects at his high school. However, blunders such as including his date of birth, most of his name and his postcode in the virus code (see VB, August 2004, p.4 for details) led to his arrest.
Also announced recently was the arrest, by the Finnish Central Criminal Police, of a man accused of creating and distributing the VBS/Lasku virus earlier this year. Unremarkable in most respects, VBS/Lasku's most unusual feature is that it spreads by sending email messages in Finnish - a fact which would, undoubtedly, have contributed to its lack of success on a global scale if it didn't already crash upon attempting to spread.
Posted on 25 July 2004 by Virus Bulletin
