Teen hacker turns
corporate cyber-crime consultant
A New Zealand teenager who helped
a crime gang hack into more than 1 million computers worldwide and
skim millions of dollars from bank accounts has a new job as a
security consultant for a telecom company.
Owen Thor Walker has the skills
that can help senior executives and customers understand the
security threats to their computer networks, TelstraClear spokesman
Chris Mirams told National Radio on Wednesday.
Walker pleaded guilty last July _
when he was 18 _ to a raft of charges connected to his work for an
international network that the FBI estimated infiltrated 1.3
million computers and skimmed bank accounts or damaged computer
systems to the tune of more than $20 million.
The charges against Walker _ who
used the online name "AKILL" and wrote so-called botnet
infiltration programs for the crime network _ were dismissed and he
was released without a criminal record after paying a fine and
forfeiting cash paid by the criminal group for his
expertise.
Walker already has delivered a
series of seminars for TelstraClear, advised senior security and
management staff at the company and has taken part in an
advertising campaign, Mirams said.
"It was really just ... to let
them know the type of cyber threats that are out there," Mirams
said, adding that Walker also discussed how to defend against those
threats.
Some hackers send mass e-mails to
a target corporate or government computer system to overload it and
crash the system. Others assume control of thousands of computers
and amass them in centrally controlled clusters known as
botnets.
The hackers can then use the
computers to steal credit card information, manipulate stock trades
and crash industry computer systems.