Young Hackers Sentenced for Web Crimes
Image: YLE
Tuusula District Court in southern Finland has sentenced three young men for a variety of online crimes. They were convicted of creating malicious programmes and using them in denial-of-service attacks.
The three were all minors when the crimes were committed in 2007.
Two of the offenders, who were aged 16 and 17 at the time, received suspended sentences and fines. The third, who was then 15, was only fined.
The trio were found guilty on five counts including creating and disseminating malware, using it to hijack others' computers and use them to block commercial web services. They were also convicted of copyright infringement because they had downloaded Microsoft programming tools from a peer sharing site.
According to Microsoft, the oldest of the three had more than 11,000 euros worth of unregistered programmes on his computer.
The hackers were also ordered to pay damages to a woman whose computer they hijacked as well as to the internet service providers they attacked, and to pay Microsoft for the stolen programmes.
YLE