21 Year Old Hacker Gets 5 Years Sentence

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

According to recent news on Wired.Com, Jeanson James Ancheta a 21 year old hacker was sentenced to almost 5 years behind the bars in federal prison.

 

Apparently he infected well over 400,000 system belonging to China Lake Naval Air Facility and the Defense Information System Agency headquartered in Falls Church, Va and used them to setup a massive botnet which he could lease out to third parties to use for mass spamming and further hacking.

 

"Your worst enemy is your own intellectual arrogance that somehow the world cannot touch you on this," U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner told Ancheta in sentencing him Monday to 57 months in prison.

 

He seems to have bagged a pretty sizable profit from his widespread activities over 2004-05. The estimated figure is well over $107,000.

 

Full Story: Wired.Com

[WEEE!! 0]

Naval Air Facility I played Command and Conquer Generals before, but I never thought anyone would do such a thing... Incredible.. Oh I mean, insubordinate.

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

wow, for 5 years just to crack into a site, not really that amazing.Yet, he did deserve it since it is breaking into property, cyber or not.xboxrulz

[pyost 0]

That's cracker :PThe news is rather good, but the whole situation isn't. This one is a small fish, and there are many others. Those others are even more threatening because they make viruses that spread through the internet and infect everyone - but they are untouchable (the crackers), it's very hard to arrest them. Maybe the law should try a bit more to catch those guys, and only after that to catch the ones that attack a certain are of the network. I'm not saying that it should be forgotten, I'm only saying that a crashed system network = mess and crashed internet = catastrophe.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

The law doesn't want to catch virus makers or else there would be less viruses and the anti-virus security market would crash before its time... er... um... I mean they just can't find them...But yea I'm always kind of glad when someone gets caught pulling this stuff. It's just asking for trouble when you start doing things of this nature. Serves em right.

[Dismonic 0]

all i got to say is... ANOTHERONE BITES THE DUST!

[Sarah81 0]

Apparently he infected well over 400,000 system belonging to China Lake Naval Air Facility and the Defense Information System Agency headquartered in Falls Church, Va and used them to setup a massive botnet which he could lease out to third parties to use for mass spamming and further hacking.

He seems to have bagged a pretty sizable profit from his widespread activities over 2004-05. The estimated figure is well over $107,000.

 

You know...until I got to the part about this guy leasing the hacked systems to mass spammers, I actually felt the tiniest bit sorry for the creep.

 

But then I read that part and wondered if five years is really a long enough sentence for anybody who helps make massive amounts of spam possible.

[iGuest 3]

That's cracker

Yeah, thats right that guy who CRACKED into an government owned system is a cracker and not a hacker. A hacker is a person who ethically hacks into systems, I mean to say hackers are appointed by companies to test their security, so that a cracker does'nt crack and steal all the sensitive information or in other words hackers is a guy/gal who has a lot of knowledge in computers, he like a CyberGuru.

The law doesn't want to catch virus makers or else there would be less viruses and the anti-virus security market would crash before its time... er... um... I mean they just can't find them...

I dont know how much I am saying is true but I have heard some rumors telling that anti-virus and security companies themselves make virus and other malacious programs, so I think its ok if the law catches all the virus makers because the anti-virus companies themselves make virii to keep them in the market.

[sparx 0]

I'm glad to see that some people here know the intellectual difference between a white-hat hacker and a cracker. Similar skills used in different ways. It's the old perennial good v/s evil story...

[surfermac 0]

Ya why go illegal when he could go legal

[DubahuTeEf 0]

Damn, thats all i can say.

[Curt200518 0]

wow...my opinion is hacking any government places is completely stupid....im this fact played a huge impact on his sentencing....if he hacked non-government related systems his sentence my have not been as steep...but who knows..sucks alot for this guy, and not nearly worth $104,000 for 5 years of your life...Im sure he will learn his lessonlater

[H.O.D 0]

You know...reading articles like these, some people will actually get encouraged to do hacking. They take it up as a challenge and try to beat the system by creating more powerful viruses and malware. There will be more people who will do crimes like this in order to earn money illegally and flood the internet with spam. They all have the same goal in mind - to avoid being caught for the maximum time possible. This is how the crackers' mind really works - always taking up so-called "challenges" and doing crimes, all for nothing :PAs for the punishment, I think it won't do any good by throwing him into prison. All he will do is build a stronger plan to get back as soon as he releases I think the best punishment would be to ensure that the person doesn't get access to a computer for the rest of his life. That way it would be safe for all around that person

[HannahI 0]

Well, there's nothing we can do about it now.

[8ennett 0]

The law doesn't want to catch virus makers or else there would be less viruses and the anti-virus security market would crash before its time... er... um... I mean they just can't find them...
But yea I'm always kind of glad when someone gets caught pulling this stuff. It's just asking for trouble when you start doing things of this nature. Serves em right.

Actually the figure for people creating genuine viruses for their own personal gains now is about 5% of the worlds actual virii population, and it is very doubtful that any of these will somehow find their way on to a regular home pc users system. Instead most viruses are developed by marketing companies and passed off through other software (usually freeware) and clever pop-ups designed to trick people in to downloading the virus (which again is designed for marketing purposes).

The term 'Trojan Horse' used by virus scanners today is far too loose compared to original trojan horse viruses, which were designed to generate a back door on the computer (usually by opening a file transfer port) for the hacker to exploit and gain access to your files. 'Trojan Horses' as described by virus software is in actual fact used to describe a piece of software that hijacks your web browser and periodically generates its own pop-ups advertising what ever the creating company have been paid to advertise.

It's a vicious cycle in all fairness. The marketing companies make their money from tricking people in to allowing their software to show their clients adverts while the anti-virus companies make their money from 'slowly' preventing these marketing companies from achieving their goal. If it is to stop then the solution would be for people to be very careful when deploying their marketing campaigns and ensure that they are merely going through the appropriate channels instead of leaving the task to specialist agencies who try to find the cheapest means to justify the end result.

Such actions would not be tolerated outside the world of cyber-space and aren't either, people posting flyers in some of the most inappropriate of places and being fined for doing so etc. However as it is not a widely known fact how this series of events plays out due to the vast majority of computer users being limited to the ability of using Microsoft Office and browsing facebook (technologically inept as I prefer to call them), then they can not even begin to grasp at the complexity of the situation and so it goes unchecked.

To quote the virus doctor (http://www.thevirusdoc.com/virusmyths.pdf):

A Dozen Dangerous Myths About Computer Viruses
One of the reasons viruses have become such a threat to modern computer systems is the fact that today's viruses are different in almost every way from what they were a few years ago. But most computer users aren't aware of these changes. Consequently, their idea of adequate protection against viruses, worms, and Trojan horses is likely to be far less than what is necessary. All of the following statements are beliefs commonly held about viruses, and all are myths. In most cases the statement was true a few years ago, but certainly not in 2005:

1. They are created by bored, sociopathic teenagers and vandals â Most viruses today are written for the express purpose of making money; many are produced "on contract" for criminals or unscrupulous operators.
2. You'll know when your computer is infected by a virus â Modern viruses generate more cash for their creators every minute they remain on an infected computer; they will go to extreme measures to reduce the likelihood of detection.
3. If you've backed up your data, you don't need to worry about virus infection â The end result of a modern virus infection is far more extensive than deleted or corrupted files on your hard drive; confidential or sensitive files may have been compromised, with no obvious symptoms on the infected computer.
4. It's safe to reuse the same backup media every time you back up your data â Since the symptoms of a virus infection may not be obvious, the files that were backed up last week, or even last month, could contain the virus as well.
5. If your computer has anti-virus software installed, you don't need to worry about virus infection â Today's viruses, worms, and Trojan horses can sometimes elude detection by even the best Anti-Virus software; and if your virus definitions are not up to date, your exposure is greatly magnified.
6. Viruses are only transmitted through e-mail attachments â Some viruses are activated as soon as the infected e-mail message is opened, even without an attachment.
7. The only attachments that can hurt you are .exe files â There are more than 40 file types, or extensions, that may contain or spread a virus; some of the most common today are .com, .cpl, .eml, .exe, .pif, .reg, .scr, .vbs, and .zip.
8. It's safe to open attachments from senders you recognize â Most e-mail messages that contain virus-infected attachments will appear to come from someone familiar to you; the virus "spoofs" the From address, to mislead the recipient into a false sense of security.
9. Viruses only come through e-mail â There are many other ways a modern virus can spread, including malicious links on Web sites, through Chat or Instant Messenger sessions, or across a Local Area Network (LAN); some generate random IP addresses and attempt to infect any computer with a corresponding address.
10. The Preview Pane is a safe, convenient way of previewing your e-mail messages â The Preview Pane in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express is a convenient feature, but it is also a major security weakness that has been exploited by numerous viruses.
11. Viruses can only spread to e-mail addresses in your address book â Viruses that do spread via e-mail look for the target addresses in other files on the infected computer; these may be files with an extension of .doc, .eml, .mdb, .xls, or those associated with other common office applications or databases.
12. Only Windows-based computers are susceptible to viruses â In a recent week, the National Cyber Alert System identified 90 new or updated vulnerabilities; of these, 12% targeted Windows systems, 50% affected Unix/Linux, and 38% affected multiple Operating Systems.