Hacker Harrison Confronts Adelaide Magistrates Court

On September 4, 2009, Anthony Scott Harrison, 20, from Black Forest (Germany), faced court on charges of unleashing a computer virus on thousands of bank accounts throughout the world from Adelaide.

The alleged computer hacker, charged with eight offences, faced Adelaide Magistrates Court. He is facing four counts related to manipulating computer data to cause damage or inconvenience, two counts of control or possession of data in order to commit serious cyber offences, and one count each of compromising a machine to benefit and trafficking in a forbidden drug.

Besides this, it is claimed that he infiltrated 3,000 PCs in Australia and other countries through specially-designed software to steal credit card and banking credentials. After the hacker's arrest in July 2009, the police stated that it was the biggest incident of its kind in Australia in which banks accounts were accessed and money was stolen.

Police also claimed that the hacker had further developed the potential to infect 75,000 more systems and stated that a virus could lead to the shutdown of websites.

Magistrate Bill Ackland in fact marked the case as a bit strange and remanded the accused on continuing bail to appear in court in December, reported Adelaide Now on September 4, 2009.

According to the reports, the prosecutors appealed for a lengthy adjournment of the case so that the police get sufficient time to gather more evidences against the accused. The court stated that the charges against Harrison were very serious in nature.

It is noted that the South Australian Police Electronic Crime Section arrested Harrison with the help of the Australian Federal Police High Tech Crime Operations branch. According to a police spokesman, the arrest of Harrison resulted into the exposure of very vital information, on the basis of which other offenders could be identified, reported The Sydney Morning Herald on September 4, 2009.

Just recently, in August, another computer hacker Gonzalez, 28, was indicted for stealing millions of credit and debit card numbers of various leading retail chains and conducting fake transactions worth millions of dollars by means of malicious software.

Related article: Hacker & Virus in MySpace

» SPAMfighter News - 9/12/2009