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Botnets: A Call to Action • Chapter 1
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computers, Parson’s worm spread to other individual computers. Parson’s
worm then directed those infected computers to launch an attack against a
Microsoft Web site. Attorneys for the government calculate that more than
48,000 computers were infected by Parson’s worm.”
Parson was sentenced to 18 months in jail, three years of supervised
release, and a restitution amount dependent on his observance of the condi-
tions of supervised release. From the DOJ press release, “In sentencing Parson
to eighteen months, Judge Pechman said she considered his unique circum-
stances: that he was just three weeks past his 18th birthday when he released
the worm, his history of mental illness, and that his parents had failed to
monitor or guide him on his computer activities. Pechman told Parson his
community service had to be through face-to-face contact with others and
restricted his use of computers to only educational and business purposes. She
told him, ‘No video games, no chat rooms. I don’t want you to have anony-
mous friends; I want you to have real world friends.’ She also stressed that part
of Parson’s supervised release would involve a mental health program.
The pattern that you can see in these criminal and civil prosecutions is
that the punishment doesn’t appear to fit the crime. In most cases here, there
was no record of sentencing.
The Industry Responds
At the TechEd 2006 conference in Boston, Microsoft confirmed that “well-
organized mobsters have established control [of] a global billion-dollar crime
network using keystroke loggers, IRC bots, and rootkits,” according to
“Microsoft:Trojans, Bots Are ‘Significant and Tangible Threat,’” an article by
Ryan Naraine in the June 12, 2006, edition of eWEEK.com. Microsoft is
basing this conclusion on data collected by its Malicious Software Removal
Tool (MSRT).The article says that MSRT has removed 16 million instances
of malicious code on 5.7 million unique Windows systems. Sixty-two percent
of these systems were found to have a Trojan or bot client.
The Alliance Against IP Theft, an organization in the U.K., published a
document titled “Proving the Connection—Links between Intellectual
Property Theft and Organised Crime” (www.allianceagainstiptheft.co.uk) that
supports Microsoft’s claim.