Thu, Sep 14, 2000 page17

• Student sends Chernobyl virus author to prison

  NOT CHILD'S PLAY It wasn't a government cyber-swat team that took down Taiwan's notorious computer virus designer -- instead it was a teenager irked over his computer's meltdown

  • By Dan Nystedt / STAFF REPORTER
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  Following Monday's detention of Chen Ing-hao (陳盈豪), inventor of the Chernobyl virus (dubbed "CIH" in Taiwan after Chen's initials) on charges of "interfering with the stored computer data of others," it was reported that a local high school student filed the charges with police.

  Chen now faces up to three years behind bars or NT$30,000 in fines, according to Robert Chang, section chief of the National Police Administration's Computer Crime Squad (刑警局).

  The computer virus ravaged over 700,000 systems worldwide -- particularly those in China, Turkey and South Korea -- but spared most Taiwan computer users.

  On April 26, 1999 Chernobyl broke out across the Internet, crashing more than half a million computers by reformatting -- and thereby erasing -- their hard drives and damaging a key chip inside the computer. The Chernobyl virus only activates once a year, on April 26th, the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the former Soviet Union.

  Although the virus caused millions of dollars of damage, charges were never formally brought against Chen until recently because "nobody filed a complaint against him," Chang said.

  According to the Computer Crime Squad's Chang, despite the fact that the virus crashed over half a million computers in Turkey and South Korea -- including an airport in Izmir on Turkey's Aegean coast, Turkey's state-owned TRT television station and the Korean Supreme Court -- not a single company, official or individual filed a formal complaint against Chen.

  When the virus recurred on April 26, 2000, however, a local high school student, whose computer hardrive suffered a meltdown, filed formal charges against Chen, local newspapers reported, and the virus author was subsequently arrested.

  According to sources from XLinux International (網虎), the company where Chen now works as a software engineer, Chernobyl was never supposed to leave its author's hardrive, but was inadvertently launched when a friend of Chen's sent an e-mail from his computer -- a tale strikingly similar to that of ILOVEYOU computer virus' author Onel A. de Guzman, a computer student from the Philippines.

  The XLinux spokesperson said Chen never intended for the virus to get out and has since developed an anti-virus that has not only been added to most major anti-virus protection programs but can also be found at xlinux.com and wahoo.com.tw.

  Whether or not the author intended to cause harm, Chernobyl's wrath has caused damage estimated at hundreds of millions of US dollars.

  "He probably got half a dozen job offers and he's probably a hero in his home town because they can't comprehend the damage done to computer hard drives and files around the world," said Russ McClay Pro QC Studios Web page specialist. "But it's really serious."

  McClay believes Taiwan will be forced to enact tougher cyber laws by countries affected by viruses or other hacker crimes originating from here in the future.

  "Taiwan doesn't want to be known as a haven for [computer] hackers and crackers," said McClay.
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