Friday, March 14, 2008

Florida Man Pleads Guilty to Botnet Charges

Dan Goodin writes on The Register:

A US-based hacker has admitted he reaped thousands of dollars by breaking into corporate computers in Europe and making them part of a botnet that automatically installed adware.

Robert Matthew Bentley, 21, of Panama City, Florida, pleaded guilty to two felony charges related to his botnet activities, which took place over a 13-month period starting in October, 2005, according to documents filed in a federal court in Florida. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000. His sentence hearing is scheduled for May 28.

He sometimes went by the online moniker LSDigital.

The prosecution was part of Operation Bot Roast, an FBI initiative designed to crack down on botnets. It was the result of a multi-year investigation that also involved authorities in Finland and Paris and assistance from the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon.

More here.

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