Staff: Guilty! Christopher Maxwell, 20, of Vacaville, California, was originally indicted by a federal grand jury in Seattle: Intentionally cause Damage to a Protected Computer and Commit Computer Fraud. Maxwell’s creation of botnet led to computer malfunctions at Seattle’s Northwest Hospital in January, 2005.
“Some people consider botnets a mere annoyance or inconvenience for consumers, but they are highly destructive. In this case, the impact of the botnet could have been deadly,” said United States Attorney John McKay.
The indictment alleged that Maxwell and a couple cronies created the botnet to fraudulently obtain commission income from installing adware on computers without the owners’ permission.
For example, by turning a private computer into a zombie, the botnet controller can remotely install the adware and collect commissions without the owner’s permission or knowledge. In this case, the government claimed that Maxwell and his co-conspirators earned $100,000 in fraudulent payments from companies whose adware they had installed.
In order to set up the botnet, Maxwell needed high powered computer servers. Feds say he abused and compromised institutional computer networks at California State University, Northridge; the University of Michigan; and University of California, Los Angeles. The use of those systems disrupted the normal functions of the compromised computers.
According to the indictment, as the botnet searched for additional computers to compromise, it infected the computer network at Northwest Hospital in north Seattle. The increase in computer traffic as the botnet scanned the system interrupted normal hospital computer communications.
These disruptions affected the hospital’s systems in numerous ways: doors to the operating rooms did not open, pagers did not work and computers in the intensive care unit shut down. By going to back up systems the hospital was able to avoid any compromise in the level of patient care.
Since he plead guilty, Maxwell probably won’t get the max: up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
But he oughta get a little something extra for risking folks’ lives at his 4 August sentencing.
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