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| The latest edition of Stern magazine contains an
interview with the suspected author of the Sasser and Netsky
worms |
An interview with the suspected author of the Sasser worm has
been published in Germany by Stern magazine.
The interview confirms what Sophos experts said a month ago, that it
was a friend of teenager Sven Jaschan who tipped off Microsoft in
an attempt to claim a reward. That friend is now also under
suspicion for their involvement with virus writing and
distribution, and Microsoft has indicated that they will not
receive a reward.
The article, published today, portrays an image of Jaschan as a
loner with few friends, sitting in front of his computer screen all
night. In the interview Jaschan claims that he used a piece of code
he found on the internet inside Sasser that "malfunctioned" and
caused PCs to reboot. He claims this was not his intention, and
that he was "thoughtless" and had not considered the consequences
or the damage that his worm would cause.
"Jaschan claims that he 'only wanted' his creation to be
mentioned in every newspaper around the world. Well, he certainly
appears to have achieved that objective - he is now a poster-boy
for virus writers around the world," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Considering his age at the time
of the offences it will be interesting to see what punishment he
receives for the crimes he has admitted. It's quite possible he
will escape a stiff sentence despite the havoc his worms caused
worldwide."
In the interview Jaschan says his intention was to remove
infections of the MyDoom and Bagle worms from infected computers
with the many variants of the Netsky worm he claims to have
authored.
However, Sophos notes that some of the Netsky worms launched
denial-of-service attacks against German and Swiss websites, in an
attempt to knock them off the internet. The Netsky-Z worm, for
instance, instigated
attacks against an educational website based close to Jaschan's
home.
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