63 Year Old Grandpa Arrested for Hacking

At least this seems to be the case concerning three arrests of members considered by authorities to be part of the cybercrime organization M00P. The British Metropolitan Police's Computer Crime Unit, and the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation have joined forces in apprehending three suspects, two British men, age 63 and 28, and a 19 year old Fin, all suspected to operate a botnet network comprised of PCs that they had compromised using viruses that they had previously wrote. Authorities take under consideration the possibility that more persons are part of M00P and are trying to identify all involved.

The three are accused that they created the Trojan Worms known as Stinx, Breplibot, and Rykanos and that, using them, they compromised especially corporate computers and created a zombie network that they controlled using instant communication protocol: Internet Relay Chat.

"They may have been involved in trying to release bot worms that exploited machines previously infected by Zotob and Rbot to take over compromised computers," said Graham Cluley, senior security consultant for Sophos. "Rival gangs fight for the ownership of zombies. They find other botnets and take them over because they're such a valuable commodity. The OX90 gang that created Zotob would be natural rivals to M00P."

If found guilty, the accused face up to six months in prison and a fine of 5.000 pounds.