Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05t_private> Underage Programmer Pleads Guilty To Stealing AOL Pass 30-10-1998 00:31 NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--A teenager has pleaded guilty to a federal criminal charge after prosecutors said he and others used a computer program he wrote to steal the passwords of hundreds of America Online Inc. (AOL) users. The teenager, whose name was withheld because of his age, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan to one count of intercepting electronic communications and helping others do so. Prosecutors said he created a "Trojan Horse" program - a program concealing another program - that worked via e-mail. A person with the program would send an e-mail message with an attachment to an AOL user, and the program was activated when the recipient clicked on the attachment, prosecutors said. The program would then capture the unknowing AOL user's keystrokes, including his or her password, and send the password to an e-mail account set up by the program's user, prosecutors said. The teen hacker used the program himself to steal passwords, and distributed it to people whom he had met over the Internet, assisting them in similar thefts, prosecutors said. In June, another juvenile pleaded guilty to using the program to steal more than 500 passwords, according to prosecutors. Michael Rapoport, 212-227-2017, DOW JONES NEWS 10-29-98 -o- Subscribe: mail majordomot_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 13:09:27 PDT