Minn. man sentenced for Blaster variant

SEATTLE, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- A young Minnesota man was sentenced Friday in Seattle to 18 months in prison for sending out a variant of the MS Blaster worm to the Internet.

Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, of Hopkins, Minn., also was sentenced to supervised release and 100 hours of community service following his prison term.

U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman will determine the amount of restitution Parson owes at a court hearing Feb. 10.

Parson was indicted in September 2003 for sending out the Blaster variant on Aug. 12, 2003. Parson's worm is referred to by a number of different names, including the "B" or "teekids" variant of the MS Blaster worm, the Justice Department said.

Parson admitted modifying the original MS Blaster worm and adding a mechanism that allowed him to have complete access to certain infected computers, the department said, then infected about 50 computers he hijacked. The worm spread from those computers to other systems and eventually launched an attack on a Microsoft site.

More than 48,000 computers were infected.