Teenage botherder arrested in New Zealand

International cooperation also leads to eight arrests in the US.

Police in New Zealand have arrested an 18-year-old youth believed to be the herder of a botnet of 1.3 million computers, reports the BBC. The hacker, who uses the online name 'Akill', has been released after questioning, but is still being investigated.

The arrest was made following an operation involving local police as well as police in the Netherlands and the FBI. The latter announced yesterday that its operation 'Bot Roast' has led to the arrest of eight individuals since it began in June. Most of the individuals are in their early twenties and used botnets for activities such as DDoS attacks, sending spam and spreading malware. Thirteen further search warrants have also been served.

A law enforcement panel discussion at VB2007 highlighted the fact that there is a good deal of room for improvement in the level of cooperation achieved between international police forces fighting cybercrime. It is encouraging, therefore, not only to see successful cooperation between international forces, but also to see it leading to concrete results - giving criminals the message that even on the Internet, they are not invincible.

30 November 2007

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