Texas Man Admitted to Giving Botnet Demo on ISP

David Anthony Edwards based in Texas has consented to appeal guilty to the charges of training a botnet on a well-known Internet service provider in order to give a demo of customized malware to a potential customer.

David accepted that he along with his alleged co-conspirator Thomas James Frederick Smith released flurry of data on the ThePlanet.com to show the effectiveness of botnet termed as Nettick, revealed the court documents.

That was merely a test to prove the reality of the botnet. In the indictment against the two culprits, prosecutors said that satisfied with the test, the potential customer agreed to purchase the entire botnet and the source code for an amount of around $3,000, reported PCWorld on April 28, 2010.

A statement of facts that was filed together with the appeal agreement revealed that Edwards (alias Davus) controlled the botnet from an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel that was hosted on his website "kidindustries.net".

Edwards and his accomplice basically searched the Internet for vulnerable PCs, and once such a system is hacked, they implanted malcode on it. This malicious code led all the hacked PCs to login to the IRC chat room.

As soon as a computer logged into the IRC chat room, both the culprits typed in commands that remotely controlled the hacked systems, like instructing all such PCs to simultaneously partake in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. Edwards and Smith also accessed websites without authorization and defaced the site, or in case of a webhost server, published its client database.

After six weeks of the attack on ThePlanet.com, Smith and Edwards hacked into T35 Hosting, Texas-based web hosting provider. They then downloaded the password database of the company and mutilated the company's website T35.net, publishing passwords and usernames on the Internet.

Reportedly, Smith has appealed not guilty to the indictment. A court trial begins May 17, 2010. However, David Edwards faces maximum imprisonment of five years and a fine of $250,000. He will also be required to compensate the victims.

Related article: Texan Spam Mailer Gets Shut Out

» SPAMfighter News - 5/11/2010