23 Jul 2003
Virus writer's appeal fails - Simon Vallor's two year jail sentence stands
Simon Vallor, the Welsh virus writer who infected thousands of
computers, has failed to have his prison sentence cut on
appeal.
Vallor, 22, was jailed for two years at Southwark Crown Court in
January 2003. But at London's Court of Appeal on 21 July his
counsel, Grant Van-Stone, argued that the Welsh web designer did
not realise the extent of damage his viruses would cause. However,
Mr Justice Aikens dismissed the appeal, saying that Vallor's crimes
were "calculated and disruptive."
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.
At the time of his original sentencing businesses showed little
sympathy to Vallor. In a survey conducted by
Sophos 46% of respondents said they felt the sentence of two years
was not harsh enough.
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.