The FBI is today likely to arrest a teenager identified as the author of a damaging virus-like infection unleashed on the Internet.
The 18-year-old, whose identity is not being made public, was accused of writing one version of the damaging "Blaster" infection, which spread quickly across the Internet weeks ago.
Further details were expected to be disclosed today by the FBI and US attorney's office in Seattle, which has been leading the investigation.
A witness reportedly saw the teenager testing the infection and called authorities, the official said.
Collectively, different versions of the virus-like worm, alternately called "LovSan" or "Blaster", snarled corporate networks all over the world. The infection inundated networks and frustrated home users.
Symantec, a leading anti-virus seller, said the worm and its variants infected more than 500,000 computers. Experts consider it one of the worst outbreaks this year.
The "Blaster.B" version of the infection, which began spreading on August 13th, was remarkably similar to the original Blaster worm that struck two days earlier - experts said its author made few changes, including renaming the infecting-file from "msblast" to an anatomical reference.
All the Blaster variants took advantage of a flaw in Microsoft's flagship Windows software. Government and industry experts had anticipated such an outbreak since July 16th, when Microsoft acknowledged the flaw, which affects Windows technology used to share data files across computer networks.
The infection was quickly dubbed "LovSan" because of a love note left behind on vulnerable computers: "I just want to say LOVE YOU SAN!" Researchers also discovered another message hidden inside the infection that appeared to taunt Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates: "billy gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!"
AP