Owen 'Akill' Walker was part of botnet 'A-team'
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Malware was stealthy and attacked other botnet code
By Ulrika Hedquist | Auckland | Wednesday, 2 April, 2008
New Zealand cybercriminal Owen Walker's malware code was highly sophisticated and in international demand, according to the Police summary of facts presented in the Thames District Court yesterday.
The bot code is considered very advanced by international cyber crime investigators, containing a number of sophisticated features that protect it from discovery, allow it to spread automatically and allow it to identify and destroy rival bot code.
One feature automatically disabled any antivirus software on an infected computer and prevented the software from being updated, say the documents.
The main servers for controlling his botnet were based in Malaysia.
The summary also says that Walker has admitted to several other DoS attacks on computer servers that are likely to be based in the US. He conducted some of these at the request of his US associate, Ryan Goldstein, say the documents.
However, New Zealand police are only aware of one formal complaint, that from the University of Pennsylvania.
Walker has also admitted to collaborating with US resident Robert Bentley, who he met at an IRC chat forum.
When the FBI analysed Goldstein's computer they found a history of some of the interaction between Walker and Goldstein. At one stage, Walker indicated that Goldstein could become a member of the "A-team" with Walker and Bentley. Goldstein supplied Walker with some of his malware in return for access to Walker's bot code.
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