Developer gets prison after admitting backdoor was made for malice

(credit: Jeremy Brooks)

An Arkansas man has been sentenced to serve almost three years in federal prison for developing advanced malware that he knew would be used to steal passwords, surreptitiously turn on webcams, and conduct other unlawful actions on infected computers.

Taylor Huddleston, 27, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, admitted in July that he was the developer of NanoCore, a remote-access trojan that he sold online, documents filed in federal court in Virginia show. In a statement of facts signed by Huddleston, the defendant confirmed that from 2012 to 2016 he marketed the malware on Hack Forums, a site that offers discussions on a wide range of topics including hacking. Huddleston also agreed with prosecutors that NanoCore and available plugins offered a full set of features including:

• a keylogger that allowed customers to record all keystrokes typed
• a password stealer that extracted passwords saved and sent them over the Internet to the customer
• the ability for customers to remotely turn on webcams and spy
• the ability to view, delete, and download files
• the ability to lock infected computers until users paid customers a ransom
• a "booter" or "stresser" that allowed infected computers to participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks

The statement of facts, signed on July 25, said:

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