Blaster B creator pleads guilty

Virus targeted business and US government machines

A 19-year-old man has pleaded guilty to infecting thousands of businesses and US government computers with the Blaster B virus.

Jeffrey Lee Parson of Hopkins, Minnesota faces heavy fines and up to 37 months in jail after admitting to unleashing the virus which has attacked more than 48,000 computers since its appearance last August.

Parson told the Seattle US district courtroom that he created the virus, after being tracked down by The Washington Cyber Task Force, which comprises of the FBI and local police authorities.

By pleading guilty to making the 'teekids' variant of the Blaster virus, Parson has lowered his potential prison sentence, which could have stretched to ten years for infecting US government computers.

'Sending out a computer worm may be viewed as a harmless prank,' said Western Washington attorney John McKay.

'But the damage to individual computer users is very real and the penalties are also very real,' he said.

Carole Theriault, security consultant at anti-virus firm Sophos, said the prosecution marks a tougher attitude by law enforcement organisations on 'script kiddies'.

Earlier this month, 18-year-old German schoolboy Sven Jaschan admitted creating the Sasser and Netsky worms, which infected over 70 per cent of computers around the world.

'This should be a warning to the script kiddies,' Theriault said.

'But it raises the question should Parson be punished as much as the person who originated the virus?' she said.

The Blaster B worm infected computers that launched a denial of service attack on a Microsoft update page.

Parson will be sentenced in November.

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