19-year-old Botnet Author to Plead Guilty

[Jeff]

A 19-year-old botnet author from Wyoming has agreed to plead guilty. admitting that he created the Nugache Worm to steal user names, passwords and account numbers from infected PCs.

Jason Michael Milmont of Cheyenne, Wyoming created the trojan that was spread through AOL Instant Messenger and Limewire. Once an unsuspecting victim clicked on the trojan, their PC became a part of the botnet. At any given time, Milmont had anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 computers in his control.

Nugache had a keylogger and could sniff sensitive data like passwords stored in Internet Explorer. He used the information to make purchases with victim's credit cards, and concealed the theft by changing the compromised accounts to use Skype phone numbers that he purchased.

Milmont is facing a maximum of five years in federal prision and an fine of $250,000.

Let this be (yet another) lesson to you all -- don't click on links, even when they're sent from friends! Be sure you know what it is first, and that your friend actually meant to send it.

Read more about it at The Register or Wired.

[mfenech]

To clarify: Per the plea document, he created a bogus website which offered the Limewire program. This version was hacked with malware which was installed in user's PC's when downloaded. There was no spreading of the trojan between end users or over the Gnutella network.

[David]

concealed the theft by changing the compromised accounts to use Skype phone numbers that he purchased.

Geeze, nobody taught that kid how to be careful.