Judge Sentences Computer Attacker To Prison

A California man has been sentenced to three years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for launching botnet attacks that damaged thousands of computers. Christopher Maxwell pleaded guilty to conspiring with two juveniles to orchestrate the attacks, which used hijacked computers to install advertising software. Victims included the U.S. Defense Department, Seattle’s Northwest Hospital, and Colton Unified School District in California. The attacks, which took place in 2004 and 2005, netted the defendants about $100,000. Although Maxwell’s attorney had sought a sentence that did not include prison, noting that the defendant did not have a criminal record and did not intend for his attack to spread as widely as it did, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman disagreed. Commenting on the “incredible self-centeredness” of Maxwell’s actions, Pechman said that a prison term in this case is necessary to deter “all those youth out there who are squirreled away in their basements hacking.”

Wired News, 26 August 2006