- Jan DeWit
Jan de Wit (born
1981 ) is the Dutch author of aComputer worm commonly known as theAnna Kournikova Computer virus , which worm also had the aliases of Kalamar.A, Calamar, OnTheFly, Anna, and VBS/VBSWG.J@MM.The worm arrives in an email with the subject line "Here you have, ;0)" and an attached file called AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs. When launched on a PC the file does not display a picture of Anna Kournikova but launches a viral Visual Basic Script that forwards itself to everybody in the
Microsoft Outlook address book of the victim.It has been reported that the efforts of another virus writer working undercover for the FBI,
David L. Smith , led to the identification of Jan de Wit and that the FBI passed the information to authorities in the Netherlands. [http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2003/09/va_smithfbi.html] . De Wit turned himself in to the police in his hometownSneek on February 14, 2001, a few days after the virus was released [http://www.networkworld.com/news/2001/0913annavirus.html] .Reportedly, and resembling the cases of other computer virus writers, only a few days later the mayor of Sneek made a tentative job offer to De Wit, quoting his programming skills [http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2001/02/va_kournoreward.html]
De Wit was tried in
Leeuwarden and was charged with spreading data into a computer network with the intention of causing damage, acrime that carries a maximum sentence of four years inprison and a fine of 100,000guilder s ($41,300). [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/09/27/kournikova_virus_kiddie_gets/] .The lawyers for Jan de Wit called for the dismissal of charges against him, arguing that the worm caused minimal damage. The FBI submitted evidence to the Dutch court and suggested that $166,000 in damages was caused by the worm. De Wit admitted created the worm using a virus creation toolkit but told the court when he posted the virus to a newsgroup he did it "without thinking and without overseeing the consequences". He denied any intent to cause damage.
External links
* [http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/vbsssta.html Sophos Threat analyses]
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