You can’t help but to think back to the times when Al Capone really owned the streets.  For all of the criminal activities he was a part of, the one thing that got him into prison was tax evasion… I mean, seriously?  Well, it looks like Japan is going through a similar event.  For the first time, a virus creator has been arrested, but it wasn’t for the virus.  It was for copyright infringement.  I mean, never mind the fact that this virus could have caused severe damage to people’s systems, let’s nail him with copyright infringement!

Yeah… that will teach him to ever make any more viruses…

Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos’s global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have reminded businesses to defend their networks from malware attack, following the first ever arrest by Japanese authorities of a virus writer.

Police in Kyoto have arrested three men, who are said to have been involved in a plot to infect users of the P2P file-sharing network Winny with a Trojan horse that displayed images of popular anime characters while wiping music and movie files. The malware, which has been dubbed Harada in media reports, is believed to be related to the Pirlames Trojan horse which Sophos reported intercepting in Japan last year.

According to Japanese media reports, the three men have admitted their involvement in the crime. Masato Nakatsuji, a 24-year-old student, is said to have written the malware, while 39-year-old Shoji Sakai and Katsuhisha Ikema, 35, are said to have distributed the malicious code via Winny.[more]

Tags: Malware