| Blog Entry - Friday, February 27th, 2004 | Discussion for this entry is now closed. Please email me instead / Read (0) |
Sorry about that, something in MIME conversion or some other random affair messed with the formatting inside the Rich Text, let's try again
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Apparently they made an arrest for one of the better known virus writers a couple weeks ago. I was unaware of it so it if is old news....
Belgian police arrest female virus writer By John Leyden
Posted: 16/02/2004 at 14:01 GMT
The Register Mobile: Find out what the fuss is about. Take the two week trial today.
A 19 year-old female technology student suspected of being the infamous virus writer Gigabyte was arrested by Belgian police last weekend.
The woman was charged with computer data sabotage offences, Belgian daily La Libre Belgique reports. Her alleged crimes are punishable by up to three years in prison and fines of up to 100,000 Euros.
Police confiscated five of the teenager's computers and shut down her Web site. The 19 year-old, from Mechelen (30 kilometres north of Brussels), was released on bail pending further police inquiries.
"She was preparing to publish new viruses on this site," Belgian Police Inspector Olivier Bogaert told La Libre Belgique.
Through her gender and youth, Gigabyte stands out among the virus writing underground. She is credited with writing the first virus to use Microsoft's C# language.
She was also well known for frquent run-ins with ubiquitous AV spokesman Graham Cluley over his sociological analysis of virus writers. In anti-virus circles, Cluley is well-known for describing virus writers (VXers) in less than flattering terms, once memorably saying they only wrote malicious code because they were spotty teenage nerds who couldn't pull. Gigabyte took exception to remarks like this, even going as far as writing viral code that mocked Cluley.
According to TechTV, Gigabyte began programming aged only six years-old. Gigabyte reportedly began writing computer worms aged just 14 but has always maintained she only did this for "research purposes" and that she never released viruses herself.
Well someone will soon be offering her lots and lots of money to come work for their security company won't they?
Author: Chris Miller
Posted at: 01:29:29 PM
