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| Jeffrey Lee Parson was sentenced to 18 months
jail for the Blaster-B worm. |
Microsoft has settled its case against Jeffrey Lee Parson, the
author of the Blaster-B internet worm, who was sentenced to 18
months jail in January 2005.
During his court case Parson agreed that his worm, which
launched a denial of service attack against Microsoft's website,
had cost the company $497,546.55.
Under the terms of the new settlement, Parson will be serving
225 hours of community service once he has been released from
prison. Instead of paying back the money, Microsoft has agreed to
let Parson perform the unspecified community service "working with
less-fortunate members of the community" during three years of
supervised release after serving his sentence.
"This settlement probably makes sense. There is no way Parson or
his family would have been able to repay Microsoft for the damage
caused by the Blaster-B worm," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Parson is already serving a
heavy sentence for the crimes he has committed, and it can be hoped
that there will be positive results from his subsequent community
service."
Under the agreement, Parson will not be allowed to spend his
community service in an area involving computers or the
internet.
In a poll conducted by Sophos last month, IT administrators
vented their anger at those who write viruses - with 53% feeling
that Parson's jail sentence was not harsh enough.
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.