New Zealand’s Owen Thorn Walker, 18, has been accused of unleashing a mega-botnet that infected more than 1.3 million computers and, as a result, stole more than $20 million.

The teen was said to have been the leader of a group of programmers who created the botnet designed to steal credit cards and manipulate stock trades. Walker now faces up to 10 years in jail, if found guilty under New Zealand law.

Arrests such as this one, and another teen hacker arrest in the US (who infected hundreds of thousands of PCs with adware), remind us that not all cybercrime originates from organized crime syndicates, and that individuals, even teens, can cause significant damage. Botnets have surpassed spam as the largest Internet security issue.

“We worked closely with U.S. and Dutch authorities on this investigation. This arrest is significant not just to New Zealand but the international community as well,” said Detective Inspector Peter Devoy of the New Zealand police, underlining the degree of cooperation now being employed to bring in these individuals.

“Very few people who carry out this sort of offending are ever prosecuted, so the resolution of this case has huge international implications,” he added.

A botnet is a collection of software robots - “bots” - that run autonomously and automatically. This is not always malevolent, but in the case of most botnets, it means that “zombie computers” - compromised endpoints - run programs such as worms and Trojan horses. The BBC estimated in 2007 that up to a quarter of all Internet-enabled computers may be an unknowing part of these botnets.

Via pc world, wikipedia Tags: botnet, hacker, hackers, teen hacker, arrest, zombie computers, bots, internet security, cybercrime, worms, trojans