Simon Vallor, the twenty-two year old web designer from North Wales
who, in December 2002, pleaded guilty to writing and distributing
three computer viruses, was today sentenced at Southwark Crown
Court, London to a two year custodial sentence. His viruses -
Gokar, Redesi and Admirer - were
proven to have infected 27,000 PCs in 42 countries.
"Vallor's actions were comparable to those of a vandal gaining
illegal entry to businesses across the world and then interfering
with thousands of their PCs. His sentence reflects the severity of
his crime and it's reassuring to computer users that the UK courts
are treating cybercriminals on a par with more traditional
offenders," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant,
Sophos Anti-Virus. "Around 800 new viruses are cropping up each
month - this level of activity requires a lot of virus writers.
Perhaps Vallor's sentence will focus some minds and make virus
writers think twice before unleashing their malicious code."
Not all countries are treating cybercriminals in the same manner
as the UK courts. For example, in The Netherlands in 2001, the
author of the Anna Kournikova worm received a punishment of just
150 hours community service, even though his worm spread much
quicker and further than Vallor's three viruses combined. Sophos is
therefore calling for an internationally agreed approach to
charging and sentencing virus writers.
"Viruses know no geographical bounds so the law governing them
should reflect this. At the moment, legal systems across the world
seem to have widely different views on the seriousness of
cybercrime," continued Cluley.
Experts at Sophos's virus lab found that Vallor's Redesi worm -
which posed as a message from Microsoft warning of cyber-terrorists
following the September 11th attacks - attempted to delete data
from infected users' hard drives. His Gokar worm also had a
malicious payload - it attempted to overwrite the main page on the
websites of infected companies.
Sentencing Vallor, who went by the pseudonym of "Gobo", Judge
Geoffrey Rivlin QC said "Virus writers are not so-called computer
buffs or nerds, they happen to be criminals... Their viruses cause
destruction, disruption, consternation and even economic loss on a
grand scale."
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