Teenager arrested over '£9.7m computer hacking ring'

Hackers use botnet networks for everything from stealing credit card data to full on brute force attacks aiming to take down large networks, which was the case in the attack that was launched against eBay in September of 2007.

One of the biggest areas of research for preventing cybercrime is in the field of detecting and defeating these botnets.  Last month DailyTech reported about Nemean, a new digital fingerprinting technology able to detect botnets much faster and more accurately than current detection applications.

The Guardian reports that a New Zealand teen was arrested today and stands accused of being the ringleader of a massive botnet responsible for infecting more than 1.3 million computers. Authorities withheld the 18-year-old teen's name because of his age, but he went by the hacker alias Akill.

Authorities say that eight other people have been charged, pled guilty or convicted in association to the botnet since the investigation started in June. Thirteen arrest warrants were served in the U.S. and internationally related to the investigation.

The FBI says that the botnet has compromised more than 1 million computers and resulted in losses of around $20 million USD.

Martin Klenintjes, head of the New Zealand police e-crime unit, said, "He [Akill] is very bright and very skilled in what he's doing. He hires his services out to others."