As if the creation of malware wasn’t bad enough, it seems that a student from Carnegie Mellon University, a 20-year by the name of Morgan C. Culbertson, decided that he would profit from the creation of malware by selling it to other people. Culbertson had recently pleaded guilty in court for selling a malware he had created and could face up to 10 years in jail if found guilty.
To be specific, he pleaded guilty to a charge of “conspiracy to damage protected computers”. Culbertson is one of three men who were responsible for creating an Android malware called Dendroid, and that him and his partners had planned to sell the malware on an online marketplace for $300, essentially distributing the malware to others who might use it for even more nefarious purposes.
For those who are unfamiliar with the malware Dendroid, basically when it has infected a phone, it will be able to spy on text messages, steal files, take photos remotely, check your browser history, and record conversations, all without the owners’ knowledge. Safe to say that this was a particularly nasty piece of spyware.
While pleading guilty to the judge in court, Culberson was quoted as saying, “I am sorry to the individuals to whom my software may have compromised their privacy.” He then promised that in the future he would use his skills to protect computer users, assuming of course he is even allowed near a computer after this.
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