Israeli youths confess to spreading 'Goner' worm

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Four Israeli youths in police custody have admitted to creating and spreading the computer worm "Goner" by e-mail to attack hundreds of users around the world, police said Saturday.

Police arrested the high school students, ages 15 and 16, from the northern city of Nahariya on Friday in connection with the crime and they later admitted to concocting and spreading the worm, said Meir Zohar, the head of the police computer crime squad.

The Internet worm first spread early this month to computers in Europe, especially in France and Germany. American antivirus companies have reported more than 400 cases of Goner attacks worldwide.

The Goner worm appears as an apparently harmless e-mail, with a subject line of "Hi" and a note asking the recipient to open an attached screen saver, which affects the computer if downloaded. The worm then spreads to all addresses in the computer's e-mail system and through the instant messaging program ICQ and Internet chat tools.

Israeli police had been investigating the case for about a week, Zohar said. One of the youths had admitted creating the worm and the other three confessed to spreading it, he said.

Under Israeli law, the suspects could face between three and five years in jail if convicted, Zohar said.

The worm was designed after the virus "Melissa," which caused millions of dollars of damage worldwide in 1999, but was able to prevent detection by antivirus and firewall programs, Zohar said.

Goner quickly became known worldwide for its ability to spread through Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail programs on computers running Windows. The worm destroyed antivirus and firewall applications as well, exposing recipients to further attacks.

Antivirus company McAfee had labeled the worm "high risk virus outbreak."

Many Israeli computer users had been affected by the worm since it spread to them from the e-mail address lists of their acquaintances abroad, Zohar said.