According to technology experts, Sven Jaschan will be associated with some of the biggest viruses in the history of the Internet. The viruses: the Sasser and NetSky worms that Infected millions of computers and have caused millions of dollars of damage since their release in 2004.

The man behind the viruses proved to be not even a man at all, legally. Seventeen-year-old hacker Sven Jaschan, a student at a computer science school in Germany, claimed to have created the viruses to become a hero by developing a programme that would eradicate the rampaging Mydoom and Bagle bugs. Instead he found himself the subject of a $2,50,000 bounty courtesy of Microsoft for which some of his classmates turned him in.