Sven Jaschan, an engineering student from Waffensen, North
Germany, could face a sentence of up to five years in prison if
found guilty.
He is accused of writing the Sasser worm, which is designed to
attack a known vulnerability in the Windows operating system.
Unusually, the worm spreads by means of the internet, and does not
rely on a user opening an attachment in an e-mail – rather, the
worm infects an unprotected machine simply by its connection to the
internet.
Once infected the PC may continually crash and reboot, while the
worm uses the machine as a base from which to infect other PCs.
The worm hit thousands of computers in May this year and
followed infections by Jaschan's other alleged creation, the Netsky
worm.
According to anti-virus firm Saphos, the two worms, together
with their variants, accounted for 70% of all virus activity seen
by the firm in the first half of this year.
"For a single German
teenager to have such an impact on computer security is simply
staggering," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for
Sophos, said in July. "If one of Jaschan's friends had not informed
Microsoft about his identity then the situation may have been even
worse."
German authorities were able to arrest Jaschan within seven days
of Sasser's launch in early May, following cooperation among German
law enforcement agencies, the FBI and Secret Service in the US, and
Microsoft.
Informants came forward in the hope of securing a $250,000
reward offered by Microsoft as part of its $5 million anti-virus
reward program.
While investigations into some of Jaschan's friends continue,
German prosecutors have now charged the teenager with computer
sabotage to the tune of $157,000, although prosecutors believe that
many victims have not come forward and that the real cost of the
worm is in the millions.
According to Sophos, if Jaschan, who was 17 at the time of the
offence, is tried in adult rather than juvenile court, he may face
a sentence of up to five years in prison.
