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CNN Live Saturday
Teen Charges With Creating Compute Worm
Aired August 30, 2003 - 12:44 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: A Minnesota teenager is under house arrest today, charged with writing one variant of the destructive Blaster computer worm.
Eighteen-year-old high school senior Jeffrey Lee Parson is being monitored electronically at his home. Federal agents seized his seven computers, and a judge ordered him to stay off the Internet.
Parson could go to prison for ten years, if he's convicted of being the worm writer.
CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg is here to talk about the Blaster Worm and the damage it caused.
Was it a lot, Dan?
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, we should point out, as you said, that he is accused of writing a variant of the Blaster Worm. The original Blaster Worm started spreading on the Internet a couple of weeks ago.
He's accused -- Parson is accused of taking the code from this worm, adapting it, modifying it and making it more destructive. In fact, he was trying to steal people's financial information. That's what he's accused of doing.
And that is part of what tipped off investigators because inside the code of the variant that he is accused of creating, they found a reference to the name that he went by online. That was called T-3 Kid. He had tweaked it a bit to be T-33 Kid, as opposed to T Kid. But that is part of what led them to find him online.
Jeffrey Lee Parson is 18. He's a rather imposing figure. He's 6'4", 320 pounds. You can see him here. And he is a high school student. He's from a suburb in Minneapolis called Hopkins.
And he will be appearing before a magistrate. The next court date is in Seattle on September 17. He appeared before a magistrate yesterday to face these charges. He's faced with one count and he could get up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The worm itself, the variant, is suspected of going through at least 7,000 computers and causing at least $5,000 damage. Now, that's important to meet the threshold of a federal hacking law in this case -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: And Dan, that's a pretty hefty potential penalty if convicted of it. Are the feds trying to use him as an example?
SIEBERG: Absolutely. That is what the federal investigators said yesterday. They said that they are essentially using Mr. Parson as a way to send a message out to anybody online, cyber attackers or hackers, who may be creating some of these worms.
You know, there are more than just the variants of the Blaster Worm on the Internet right now. There are several different worms. In fact, you could almost call it the Summer of the Worm.
You can see here. There's the Blaster, the LoveSan. The original, plus Blaster.b. That's the one that Mr. Parson is accused of creating. There are other variants of the Blaster Worm out there right now. People do need to get the patch for their system.
There's also the Welchia, which is sort of a good worm. It actually tries to close the hole in the Windows operating systems that were affected by this worm but it caused a lot of damage, as well, because it sends itself out at such a fast rate. And SoBig.f is another variant of SoBig, which originally appeared on the Internet in January and it is considered to be one of the fastest spreading, if not the fastest spreading, worm out there on the Internet right now.
Just looking at the difference between a worm and a virus, in case you're wondering is that a worm doesn't need you to interact with it to send itself out. That's what Blaster was doing, as opposed to the virus, which may come as an attachment or something else.
So if you want to protect yourself, patch your system and update your anti-virus and firewall software. That's the best advice anyone can give.
WHITFIELD: All right. Dan Sieberg, good advice. Thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 30, 2003 - 12:44 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: A Minnesota teenager is under house arrest today, charged with writing one variant of the destructive Blaster computer worm.
Eighteen-year-old high school senior Jeffrey Lee Parson is being monitored electronically at his home. Federal agents seized his seven computers, and a judge ordered him to stay off the Internet.
Parson could go to prison for ten years, if he's convicted of being the worm writer.
CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg is here to talk about the Blaster Worm and the damage it caused.
Was it a lot, Dan?
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, we should point out, as you said, that he is accused of writing a variant of the Blaster Worm. The original Blaster Worm started spreading on the Internet a couple of weeks ago.
He's accused -- Parson is accused of taking the code from this worm, adapting it, modifying it and making it more destructive. In fact, he was trying to steal people's financial information. That's what he's accused of doing.
And that is part of what tipped off investigators because inside the code of the variant that he is accused of creating, they found a reference to the name that he went by online. That was called T-3 Kid. He had tweaked it a bit to be T-33 Kid, as opposed to T Kid. But that is part of what led them to find him online.
Jeffrey Lee Parson is 18. He's a rather imposing figure. He's 6'4", 320 pounds. You can see him here. And he is a high school student. He's from a suburb in Minneapolis called Hopkins.
And he will be appearing before a magistrate. The next court date is in Seattle on September 17. He appeared before a magistrate yesterday to face these charges. He's faced with one count and he could get up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The worm itself, the variant, is suspected of going through at least 7,000 computers and causing at least $5,000 damage. Now, that's important to meet the threshold of a federal hacking law in this case -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: And Dan, that's a pretty hefty potential penalty if convicted of it. Are the feds trying to use him as an example?
SIEBERG: Absolutely. That is what the federal investigators said yesterday. They said that they are essentially using Mr. Parson as a way to send a message out to anybody online, cyber attackers or hackers, who may be creating some of these worms.
You know, there are more than just the variants of the Blaster Worm on the Internet right now. There are several different worms. In fact, you could almost call it the Summer of the Worm.
You can see here. There's the Blaster, the LoveSan. The original, plus Blaster.b. That's the one that Mr. Parson is accused of creating. There are other variants of the Blaster Worm out there right now. People do need to get the patch for their system.
There's also the Welchia, which is sort of a good worm. It actually tries to close the hole in the Windows operating systems that were affected by this worm but it caused a lot of damage, as well, because it sends itself out at such a fast rate. And SoBig.f is another variant of SoBig, which originally appeared on the Internet in January and it is considered to be one of the fastest spreading, if not the fastest spreading, worm out there on the Internet right now.
Just looking at the difference between a worm and a virus, in case you're wondering is that a worm doesn't need you to interact with it to send itself out. That's what Blaster was doing, as opposed to the virus, which may come as an attachment or something else.
So if you want to protect yourself, patch your system and update your anti-virus and firewall software. That's the best advice anyone can give.
WHITFIELD: All right. Dan Sieberg, good advice. Thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
