FBI arrest 20-year-old charged with spreading virus

A 20-year-old man accused of using thousands of hijacked computers, or "bot nets," to damage systems and send massive amounts of spam across the Internet was arrested on Thursday in what authorities called the first such prosecution of its kind.

Jeanson James Ancheta, who prosecutors say was a well-known member of the "Botmaster Underground" -- or the secret network of computer hackers skilled at bot attacks -- was taken into custody after being lured to FBI offices in Los Angeles, said U.S. Attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek.

A bot is a program that surreptitiously installs itself on a &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/06/19/30662.html' target=_blank>computer and allows the hacker to control the computer. A bot net is a network of such robot computers, which can harness their collective power to do considerable damage or send out huge quantities of spam, informs Reuters.

According to PC Pro, Ancheta was arrested when he was lured to FBI offices in order to pick up equipment seized in an earlier raid. He is thought to have made in the region of $60,000 from his activities with which he bought a new BMW and more computing equipment.

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