IT Professional Gets Four Years for Stealing with Botnets

An IT professional employed by Internet company Mahalo.com has been sentenced to four years in jail and is the first person in the nation to plead guilty to wiretapping charges in connection with the use of botnets.

John Schiefer, 26, of Los Angeles will begin his sentence June 1 after an investigation by the FBI called Operation Bot Roast II found Schiefer was involved in several scams.

Schiefer developed an army of botnets while employed by 3G Communications, a telecom company based in Los Angeles, according to documents released by the U.S. district attorney in central California. With the botnets, Schiefer was able to watch Internet traffic between victims and companies such as PayPal.

Once in control of PCs, Schiefer, along with accomplices, would take money from his victims' bank accounts or use their financial accounts to make purchases.
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