RSSSasser Worm Author May Face 2 Years
By Ed Oswald | Published July 7, 2005, 3:05 PM
In closing arguments, German court officials have recommended putting 19 year-old Sven Jaschan behind bars for two years for creating the "Sasser" computer worm that spread to computers worldwide in 2004. However, the sentence would be contingent on his actions over the next three years.
If Jaschan does not run afoul of the law within that time period, he would not have to serve the two-year sentence in a youth detention center. According to the court, the defense had asked for a one-year suspended sentence.
The trial, which has moved quickly after starting earlier in the week, will likely end Friday with a verdict. Jaschan has pleaded guilty to all counts and confessed after his May 2004 arrest.
Microsoft was responsible for assisting in catching the teen after it posted a reward for tips leading to the arrest of those responsible. One such tip enabled authorities to track the Sasser worm back to Jaschan.
Sasser scanned for vulnerable computers, but was not a malicious worm; it was designed to seek out and delete other worms including MyDoom. However, the network scanning casused Windows computers to crash and reboot. Microsoft has since patched the problem and anti-virus programs now offer protection against Sasser.
if you try to clean up guns on the street by bombing the neighborhood, that's not cool.
He did try to get rid of OTHER bad things, but in the process did just as much damage himself, some say more...
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|Sounds like he should have tested it before releasing it. Chances are if it didn't cause problems it probably would not have been discovered. Not a bad idea to try but it has been done before. ;)
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|Hey man, here's how I see it: if I don't give you permission to be on my computer, then you're committing a crime by being there, good or evil. Virus and worm writers are lower than politicians and journalists!
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|The attack on MyDoom was part of a protracted war between many virus authors. There are no good intentions on Jaschan's part - he was just trying to outdo the other authors. Their war ( as did the individual worms) have caused much havock. Sasser crashes most computers when exploiting the LSASS vulnerability to spread and has caused many critical systems (banks, etc.) to crash.
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|So he wrote a worm that tries to hunt down and delete other bad worms... how is that bad? seriously, imho he was trying to do a good thing..
Microsoft: "hey, this guy is trying to delete worms that are affecting Windows, hell, we'd better put out a reward for his capture!"
WTF!
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|Ok- Lets review the meaning of "Worm"
"A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program, similar to a computer virus. A virus attaches itself to, and becomes part of, another executable program; however, a worm is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to propagate itself. They are often designed to exploit the file transmission capabilities found on many computers."...With good intentions or bad...
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|only because his intentions were good i will say 2 years is good but he should also be fined big time because he did cost people and companies money and downtime
now if he intentionaly wrote a malicious worm i would say electro shock him till hes a little more than a veggie so he no longer poses a threat.
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|2 years is not enough time.
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|I'm not trying to justify what he did, but seems from what I read that he had good intentions.
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|>> it was designed to seek out and delete other worms including MyDoom
Ok, that's just cool.
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|ok i dont get that....if it was designed to seek out and delete other worms including MyDoom but failed....then why does he get prison?
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|Because windows didn't like it, and it occasionally crashed it?
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|The worm crashed a huge number of computers worldwide, and caused a large amount of loss to companies and people, so he needs a lesson taught. Still, a virus that just gets rid of other viruses is pretty damned cool.
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|You have a point - many software manufacturers should be in jail because there programs aren't stable on Windows. ;)
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|sentance not hard enough in my opinion.
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|Well considering Bush thinks (and has passed into law) that piracy should be up to a ten year sentence, this guy is lucky Bush hasn't made mandatory sentencing for virus writers, he'd prolly get life. Seems that your likely to do more time these days for crime against big businesses, than killing another person, or multiple people even.
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