A Spanish man was sent to jail for two years last week after being convicted of virus writing. Óscar López Hinarejos, 26, was also ordered to pay compensation to his victims for writing the Cabronator Trojan.

Valencia Crown Court heard that Cabronator infected 100,000 machines. The Trojan surrendered control of infected PCs to hackers who were able to harvest personal details from compromised PCs or turn into drones in a zombie attack network, all controlled over an IRC channel.

The Spanish Civil Guard arrested Lopez Hinojosa in April 2003. He is the first virus writer to be jailed in Spain. ®

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