Allaple malware author jailed for online attack

A court in Estonia has taken a tough stand against malware writers

An Estonian man has been jailed for two years and seven months after being found guilty of using malware to launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on a local insurance company.

The court ruled that Artur Boiko, 44, created the Allaple malware to get revenge on IF Insurance after the company disputed a claim for a car accident.

The Allaple code spreads via network shares and by modifying local HTML files, which spread the infection further when uploaded to public web sites.

The code attempted to launch a DDoS attack on the insurance company's site and its internet service provider (ISP).

"We detected several variants of Allaple during 2006-2007," said Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at security firm F-Secure.

"The problem is that this is not a botnet. These worms have no command and control channel. The infected machines will attack their targets until they are cleaned.

"There are still thousands of active infected computers around the world, and they are still attacking. And the worm is still spreading further."

Boiko had denied the charges, but the court found him guilty and sentenced him to jail. He will also have to pay damages of $450,000 (£297,000) to IF Insurance and $130,000 (£86,000) to the ISP.

"Two and a half years in prison and $580,000 [£383,000] in damages sounds to me like a really good reason not to write malware," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"I think Boiko would have been wiser to take his complaint with the insurance company on the chin (or to an ombudsman) rather than make life much worse for himself by writing and releasing malware."