Teen hacker 'led world cyber crime ring'

A New Zealand teenager accused of leading an international cyber crime network has been convicted of illegal computer hacking after pleading guilty to six charges.

Owen Walker, 18, known by his online name “AKILL”, was involved in a network accused of infiltrating 1.3 million computers and skimming millions from victims’ bank accounts.

The case against Walker is part of an international crackdown on hackers who assume control of computers and amass them into centrally-controlled clusters known as botnets.

The hackers can then use the computers to steal credit card information, manipulate stock trades and even crash industry computers, authorities said when the case first surfaced in late November.

Eight people have been accused, pleaded guilty or been convicted since the investigation began last June. Thirteen additional warrants have been served in the US and overseas in the investigation.

The charges against Walker do not directly address his alleged role as kingpin of the network, and police have released only a few details of the operation. They have not filed charges linked to the alleged skimming of millions of dollars and have not explained why no such charges have been filed.

Police electronic crime laboratory head Martin Kleintjes said later that Walker’s “software was used by other cyber criminals round the world” and the teen was paid “less than 40,000 New Zealand dollars” (€20,000) by them for his work.

“He actually didn’t get money out of bank accounts himself,” he told New Zealand’s National Radio.

Walker’s lawyer said that “complicated reparation issues” would be dealt with on the day Walker was sentenced.

Walker pleaded guilty in the Thames District Court to two charges of accessing a computer for dishonest purpose, two charges of accessing computer systems without authorisation, one of damaging or interfering with computer systems and one of possessing software for committing crime.

He faces a maximum penalty of several prison terms of up to five years.

Judge Arthur Tompkins remanded Walker on police bail until May 28, when he will be sentenced.

The judge said he would consider home or community detention, community work and a fine for Walker.

Walker was arrested after an 18-month investigation by New Zealand police in collaboration with the FBI and Dutch authorities.

When he was first detained in November last year, police said Walker’s international spybot ring had infiltrated computers around the world with malicious software.

Police said he was also responsible for placing advertising spam on about 1.3 million computers worldwide through computers based in the Netherlands.

Spybot and botnet are jargon for infiltrating a group of computers and infecting them with malicious software that allows them to be used to collect information – mainly credit card and bank account details.

The FBI estimates that more than a million computers have been infected and puts the combined economic losses at more than €13.3m.