Virus Storage Led to Arrest in Japan

Yasuhiro Kawaguchi from Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, Japan is recently taken behind the bars for storing a computer virus in his personal computer illegitimately. This move from the crime branch however, indicates the beginning of a positive move by the government in dealing with cybercrime effective from July 14, 2011, reported BREITBART on July 21, 2011.

Corps suspects Kawaguchi of saving the virus with an intention of infecting users by the "Share" file exchange program. Kawaguchi confessed to the officers of the Metropolitan Police Department's (MPD) cyber crimes division that as file sharing (Internet) is so messy, he intends to punish people involved in it.

This event came to fore, when investigators were searching Kawaguchi's computer for violating the Copyright Act for illegitimately sharing manga online, which is a Japanese word for "comics".

The name provided to the virus file indicates child pornography and it flashes a series of obscene images on the screen. The malicious software executes unnecessary commands making it difficult for users to operate their computers.

Kawaguchi confessed about his self written viruses in 2007 with the aim of infecting computers, and in this dwell, he had already posted viruses on file sharing networks for almost 10 times since 2010, infecting about 2000 computers, reports The Mainichi Daily News on July 21, 2011.

According to the revised Penal Code effective from July 14, 2011, storage of a computer virus illegitimately is a criminal act and violators can be sentenced for upto 2 years imprisonment and even be fined with a penalty of 300,000 Yen.

The MPD denotes this event to be the first case in the country after the enforcement of the Penal Code in July 2011.

According to the senior MPD official, though various strategies were implemented in the past, they were unable to keep track with the crime but the initiation of the revised Penal Code seems to bring some positive hope, as per the news published in DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE on July 22, 2011.

Security experts claim that though the latest virus do not have implication towards damaging data on infected computers, they would create hinder operation for users.

Related article: Virus Infects Through USB Drives

» SPAMfighter News - 7/30/2011