NZ coppers arrest 'botnet gang leader'Teen was brains behind the outfit claim.By Nick Farrell: Friday, 30 November 2007, 8:16 AMINSPECTOR Knacker of the Hamilton Yard in New Zealand has swooped on the home of an 18 year old bloke of whom it is said is the 'criminal mastermind behind an international cyber gang of botnet masters'.The teen was arrested and his computers confiscated in a series of raids in the North of New Zealand. Since Hamilton is fairly flat they did not have to disable the teen's volcano or stick his white cat in a cattery.Police say that the man arrested was known on the web as 'AKILL' and was the ringleader of the international "botnet coding group".AKILL was responsible for infecting more than one million computers and causing more than $US20 million in economic losses.The arrest was part of an international crackdown worldwide.According to the Sydney Morning Herald, investigations started in the US when a 21 year old student from the University of Pennsylvania Ryan Goldstein, was angry that a site had kicked him off after a dispute.The Universities servers were shut by a DoS attack soon after. When Goldstein was arrested the FBI followed an electronic trail from that student's account to Goldstein's screen name, "Digerati," and the New Zealand hacker "AKILL." µ
