“I WAS THE HERO OF MY CLASS”
Boy who nearly crashed the world
The virus is called a worm because it searches out machines to infect by itself without any help from users. Jaschan regularly upgraded the virus so it was able to sneak around firewalls that Micro-soft threw up with increasing desperation.
The teenager's decision to target the United States brought the FBI in on the hunt and they were instrumental in narrowing down Sasser's source before the youngster was pinpointed by an informer.
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He discussed the Netsky worms he was creating - the forerunners to Sasser - in early 2004 with his brothers, sisters and many of his classmates.
As the various versions of the Netsky worm bombarded businesses worldwide with millions of nuisance e-mails, Jaschan finally felt he was earning the respect of his classmates. "It was just great how Netsky began to spread, and I was the hero of my class," he said.
At the end of April 2004 Jaschan released the Sasser worm, which spread quickly via the internet without using e-mail.
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