Bulk of year's PC infections pinned to one man

Sven Jaschan, self-confessed author of the Netsky and Sasser viruses, is responsible for 70 percent of virus infections in 2004, according to a six-month virus roundup published Wednesday by antivirus company Sophos.

The 18-year-old Jaschan was taken into custody in Germany in May by police who said he had admitted to programming both the Netsky and Sasser worms, something experts at Microsoft confirmed. (A Microsoft antivirus reward program led to the teenager's arrest.) During the five months preceding Jaschan's capture, there were at least 25 variants of Netsky and one of the port-scanning network worm Sasser.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said it was staggering that one person could be responsible for so many infections. Richard Starnes, president of security industry group ISSA UK, was also impressed: "Is he going to put this on his CV?" he asked.

Cluley said there is still a chance that others may be implicated in the Netsky virus, although so far no one else has been arrested.

"The full story of the Netsky gang isn't known yet. We know some of his fellow students have been questioned, but the real motives are not fully known," said Cluley.

According to Sophos, the Sasser worm came out on top with 26.1 percent of infections, while Netsky.p, Netsky.b and Netsky.d take second, third and fourth places respectively. The only non-Jaschan viruses in the top 10 are MyDoom.a (fifth place), Zafi.b (sixth place), Sober.c (ninth place) and Bagle.a (tenth place).

"Sasser may have taken top spot, but six of the biggest viruses of the last six months were Netsky and Bagle variants--these caused a continued nuisance for PC users the world over as their authors entered into a very public game of virus writing one-upmanship," said Cluley.

Starnes said that although Jaschan has been arrested, there are always other people willing to step into his shoes.

"Virus writers tend to grow out of the hobby, but hackers do not tend to stop. There is a high turnover rate in the virus-writing community. There will always be somebody there to step in to fill the gap," he said.

Cluley agreed, but pointed out that organized criminals are increasingly getting involved in virus writing and are less likely to be caught because they tend to be more careful.

"There is a greater criminal element in virus writing than ever before. If you are an organized gang making money out of viruses and hacking, you don't go around bragging or having a playground scuffle that results in one of your number grassing you up to Microsoft," said Cluley.

Munir Kotadia of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Wrong Dude

The most responsible for the virus crippling PCs & costing
business millions of dollars in lost revenue & time is none other
than Citizen Gates in Medina Washington.
As long as weak, security breach laden, terrorist friendly IE / MS
Outlook & MS OS exist on millions of computers, Citizen Gates is
helping the cyber terrorist do their dirty work.
Nip it in the bud, switch OS / platforms NOW. You do not need
MS software to run a business in the Internet Age.
Why does Citizen Gates live by Lake Washington?
So he can walk on water to get home from Redmond.
Time to retire dinosaur.

[Not Bugged]

No clue

You have no clue whatsoever. Your average house has a very flimsy lock on it's door but we don't blame the lock makers for bad locks when a burgler breaks in, we blame the burgler for not respecting other people's property. After a break in we may improve the security some but a determined burgler will still be able to break in, OSes are very similar. Don't let your juvenile dislike of Gates keep you from seeing who's really to blame.

Prison term should substantial

Courts should sentence virus writers and hackers like the criminals they are. If someone stole a billion dollars or caused a billion dollars in property damage they would get a very long prison term. I believe there is no difference here. Lost money is lost money. Maybe if other would-be virus writers hear about Sven whining from prison about how terrible his existence is there and how his life is ruined by spending such a significant portion of it in prison, then it will make them think twice about creating viruses. And don?t try to use the excuse that he had no idea of the amount of damage that it would cause. If someone burnt down an entire block of houses when they ?only? meant to burn down one house I don?t think a court would show much sympathy for that. Virus writers are playing with fire and they know it. Law abiding citizens don?t break into businesses, rob banks, or build bombs just to see of they can do it. People who do those things are criminals, and virus writers and hackers should be sentenced accordingly.

I'd like five minutes alone with this guy

Maybe then he'd fix my computer

Get a clue, Dude...

Of course all hackers & virus writers should be severly
punished...DUH. JUVENILE approach is to think that a simple
door lock is the same thing as a complex OS that guards
businesses, bank vaults & military vessals. MS should KNOW how
to safe guard their product before selling to businesses & the
government. Since they obviouslty do not, CEO should be held
accountable for aiding the cyber terrorist. Car munufacturers are
responsible for creating unsafe cars, MS monopoly gives them
license to rob & cripple computers...? Get real...

[201293546946733175101343322673]

umm

car manufactures are not responsible for what unsafe things people do with their cars though.

Hacker

Somebody with the intelligence and knowhow to create these viruses could earn a very good pay with their computer skills. He may get jail time,certainly a bad record and probably not allowed to use a computer.No values,no morals,no common sense.A childhood prank in an adult world. we need to have morals in the public schools.Probably he should have been spanked once for bad behaviour.

18 year old kid

Hey MS cut your di** off. This kid f***ed up your billion dollar
systm. You are a**holes. You do not deserve what you have.
You should kill yourself.