A US hacker has been jailed for 12 months for using a Trojan
horse virus to break into US Department of Defense computers.
The Indiana man, 21, was part of an international gang of
hackers known as "Thr34t-Krew" (TK).
The Troj/TKBot-A Trojan horse (also known as the TKWorm)
exploited a vulnerability that is found on some Microsoft IIS Web
servers.
At least two computers belonging to the Department of Defense
were infected and damaged by the malicious code.
Between October 2002 and 7 March 2003, the jailed man and others
were able to remotely control infected computers without the
knowledge of the computers' owners. Other computers around the
world were infected.
"There is a growing trend for hacking gangs to break into
innocent people's computers to spy, to steal, and to cause damage,"
said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security
software company Sophos.
"This sentence sends out a strong message to other hackers that
infecting others with Trojan horses and other malware is not
acceptable," he said.
The jailed man, who pleaded guilty to the charges, has been
ordered to pay $12,000 (£6,500) to the Department of Defense for
damage caused by the Trojan horse.