Man, 20, enters plea over computer virus

A 20-year-old California man pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to infecting as many as 50,000 computers with a "botnet" virus that caused more than $135,000 in damage to military computers and caused problems in a Seattle hospital. Federal prosecutors said Christopher Maxwell of Vacaville, Calif., and two juveniles created and unleashed a type of computer virus that turned the computers it infected into robot computers that did their bidding. The three created the virus to infect computers with adware for which the government claims they were paid more than $100,000. The virus, which infected computers in Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in January 2005, caused numerous problems. Maxwell, who pleaded guilty to ...

» Seattle Times - 05-05-2006