In January, a federal district court found 19-year-old Minnesota resident Jeffrey Lee Parson guilty of modifying the original MSBlast worm, also known as Blaster, and releasing the variant onto the Internet.
About 53 percent of the 250 business PC users responding to the poll said the sentence was too lenient, the antivirus maker said on Wednesday. Only 14 percent believed the sentence should have been less harsh, and 12 percent said the most appropriate punishment was community service.
The frustration felt by virus victims is likely behind the feeling that the writer of a minor Internet threat should get major prison time, said Graham Cluley, senior security consultant for Sophos. Parsons is a visible target, unlike most creators of Internet nuisances, he pointed out.
"What is 18 months going to do for this guy?" Cluley said. "There are much bigger criminals out there on the Internet than Jeffrey Parsons."
While the first MSBlast is estimated to have infected at least 9.5 million computers, the offshoot created by Parson infected perhaps 50,000, according to prosecutors' claims. Neither the original worm nor Parson's variant damaged computers, experts believe.
The original guidelines called for a sentence of three to 10 years for Parsons. Judge Marsha Pechman said the sentence handed down was shorter because of Parson's age and his history of mental illness, and because his parents had failed to monitor his online activities. The judge also sentenced Parson to 100 hours of community service, saying that he had to take part in society.
"I don't want you to have anonymous friends," she said, according to a release from the US Attorney's Office. "I want you to have real-world friends."
The MSBlast epidemic was a major black eye for Microsoft. In tandem with the Sobig.F virus, the threat slammed the infrastructure of the Internet and had system administrators scrambling. Microsoft revamped its fledgling Trusted Computing Initiative soon after the attacks, pushing patches out to customers faster. The software maker also changed its development of Service Pack 2 to focus solely on security.
By comparison, Parson's MSBlast.B was barely a hiccup for most administrators, as defenses against the original MSBlast worm also protected systems against the variant.
MSBlast victims taking part in the poll may have associated Parsons with the original attack, Cluley said.
"I think it is a danger that we are using Jeffrey Parsons as the straw man for virus attacks," he said.
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