Scottish botnet master jailed for 18 months
Controlling the net from mum's front room
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A Scottish botnet master was this morning jailed for 18 months and ordered to pay £5,000 costs for hijacking many thousands of computers from his mum's front room.
Matthew Anderson, 33, from Drummuir, used the global network of compromised machines to send tens of millions of spam emails. The father of five, whose own home was too remote to get broadband, also stole personal data and spied on victims via their webcams.
Known in malware circles as "Warpigs", in 2005 he commissioned a Finnish programmer to create sophisticated, IRC-controlled bots and backdoor viruses, including "Breplibot". He disguised these Trojans as legitimate files, and used an existing list of four million email addresses to build the botnet through malicious attchments.
Anderson, who pleaded guilty in October, sat impassively in the dock at Southwark Crown Court as the sentence was delivered.
"Clearly, only a custodial sentence is justified," said Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC, spurning appeals by the defence for a suspended sentence.
The judge added that had the offences been committed since October 2008, when the maximum sentence for offences under section three of the Computer Misuse act was doubled to 10 years, Anderson's sentence would be "at least" 36 months.
According to the prosecution's opening note to the sentencing hearing, Anderson made only £12,800 between September 2005 and his arrest on 27 June 2006, by sending up to 50 million junk emails. Winston Lay, a Suffolk businessman who did not know Anderson was using illegal methods to distribute marketing material, paid him for business leads.
"The computers that I did this from did not come to any harm," he told investigating officers from the Met's Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) following his arrest.
"I did not steal information from them, I wasn't out to do identity theft or anything like that, my main aim was to support my family and generate leads for Winston. Winston did not know how I went about this, I just provided him with a list of emails once a week, maybe twice a week sometimes."
However, analysis of the computer Anderson used at his mum's showed he had stolen data. He had used his access to upload software to to log keystrokes, and to download intimate photographs, medical information, CVs, a will, and webcam images he had covertly captured.
In an IRC exchange with "CraDle", Anderson described how he took control of a teenage girl's computer and took pictures as she became upset.
Warpigs: had some chick on webcam
Warpigs: changed her screen about a bit n she started to cry lol
Warpigs: then she phoned her dad haha
CraDle: hidden webcam or?
Warpigs: yeah
CraDle: lol
Warpigs: took pics :D
Warpigs: lol
Warpigs: of her crying lol
Judge Rivlin said he took into account the "elective and selective" way Anderson deliberately stole sensitive data in sentencing.
COMMENTS
"a series of panic attacks led him to spend more time indoors."
Well he'll be very happy where he's going as he won't be spending much time outdoors.
Re: bring back the stocks
"And while were at it, bring out those bankers and currency speculators...."
Rocks only - no soft fruit.
That many computers?
'A Scottish botnet master was this morning jailed for 18 months and ordered to pay £5,000 costs for hijacking many thousands of computers from his mum's front room.'
I don't think his mother should have been allowed to have that many computers.
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