By Khushwant Singh, Court Reporter
WHILE studying for his O levels in 2005, Ng Han Xian hacked into
as many as 30,000 computers to circulate advertisements and earned
US$35,000 (S$48,700).
He was jailed two months on Thursday to obtaining illegal access
to the programs and data in the computers.
Ng, now 21, pleaded guilty earlier this month. A district court
heard that the teen had fled to China in November 2007 and was
arrested on his return in January this year.
Investigators discovered that he was hosting a botnet - a term
comprising parts of 'robot' and 'network'. It refers to a group of
computers, known as bots or zombies that have been infected with a
program that allows unauthorised access by the hacker.
In August 2005, he also signed up as an affiliate of Zangocash
and Gammacash. These are adware companies that earn money by
directing Internet traffic to online advertisements.
For every adware software Ng surreptitiously installed to allow
advertisements to pop up and every website visited by computers in
his botnet, Ng received a fee from the adware firms. By September
2005, he told police he had received close to US$35,000.
Although a fine could be imposed for the offence, District Judge
Roy Neighbour said that in this case 'the threshold for a custodial
sentence had been breached'. Ng could have been jailed for up to
two years as well as fined up to $5,000.
