Computer Crime Case

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Let's take a closer look. I also attached several articles on each case, some of which this response is drawn.

RESPONSE:

1. I need some research help for two studies on computer crime. One computer crime involves Jeanson James Ancheta, "Zombie King", which I've already gottem some research on...but I need more. The other case needs to be of an international case. I was thinking of either the Gorshkov or Zezev cases. I need to know the details of the cases.What the person(s) did and how they did it, how they were caught, what could have been done on the part of the victims to prevent the incident, and what affect the cases have on our criminal justice system?

A. Jeanson James Ancheta, "Zombie King"

The FBI arrested a 20-year-old man suspected of running a zombie network. Jeanson James Ancheta, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, was accused of profiting from his attacks by installing adware on a network of innocent third-party compromised computers. According to prosecutors, some of the computers attacked were at the Weapons Division of the US Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California and at the US Department of Defense. (Source: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-163332725.html)

From another source:

Specifically, Jeanson James Ancheta pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles court to charges of conspiring to violate anti-spam and computer misuse laws, as well as fraud. Prosecutors reported that the case was the first to target so-called botnets. Mr. Ancheta hijacked somewhere in the area of half a million computer systems (Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4642566.stm).

Mr. Ancheta was charged in November with 17 counts of conspiracy, fraud and other crimes in connection with a 14-month crime spree that started in June 2004. He was accused of taking advantages of flaws in Microsoft's Windows operating system to infect hundreds of thousands of computers, creating a zombie network of machines. Net criminals are increasingly recruiting these so-called zombie PCs from around the world. The computer owners are usually unaware that the computers have been compromised and are being used to send out spam or bombard websites with massive amounts of data. Among the machines infected were US military computers in California and in Virginia. "There are a number of ways in which zombie botnets can generate healthy profits for hackers. They can install advertising pop-ups which generate income through affiliate schemes, rent out the network for hackers who wish to blackmail websites or use them to steal information or pump out spam campaigns." said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos (Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4642566.stm)

Mr. Ancheta entered a guilty plea. He admitted selling access to his botnet to firms which fed pop-up ads to the infected computers. Under a plea agreement, Mr Ancheta is expected to receive from four years to six years in prison when he is sentenced on 1 May, 2006 though the deal has to be approved by a judge. He also agreed to pay $15,000 (£8,800) in restitution to the military facilities affected and forfeit the proceeds of his illicit activities, including more than $60,000 (£35,000) in cash and a 1993 BMW. (Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4642566.stm)

According to the FBI, Ancheta's scheme had several dimensions, all designed to illegally line his pockets:

? Beginning in June 2004, Ancheta secretly hijacked tens of thousands of computers nationwide?including those at two military sites.

? Ancheta then set up a website to "rent" his army of infected computers, complete with guidelines on how many zombies would be needed to crash corporate webs of various sizes. The going rate? A minimum of 10,000 zombies at four cents a piece. He ended up renting or selling bots to at least 10 clients.

? In August 2004, Ancheta began working with a Florida teen, code-named "SoBe," to grow his botnet army to more than 400,000 computers. He then ...