Christopher Pile
Born1968 or 1969 (age 54–55)
OccupationProgrammer
Known forCreated the computer viruses 'Pathogen' and 'Queeg'

Christopher Pile (born 1968 or 1969, also known as "the Black Baron") is a programmer who was sentenced to 18 months in jail in 1995 for creating and spreading two computer viruses called Pathogen and Queeg.[1] While Pile was not the first person convicted for creating and spreading computer viruses, his case was the first "widely covered and published computer crime case that ended in a jail sentence"[2] as well as the first such case to be prosecuted in England and Wales.[3]

In addition to the two viruses, he also created Smeg (short for "Simulated Metamorphic Encryption enGine"[4]), a software tool that he used to hide Pathogen and Queeg from the antivirus software of the time. Smeg was written in a way that allowed it to be also used by others to hide and spread their own viruses.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Victor, Peter (16 November 1995). "'Mad boffin' jailed over computer virus havoc". The Independent. Archived from the original on 26 June 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2011.
  2. 1 2 Kizza, Joseph Migga (2005). "Security Threats to Computer Networks". Computer Network Security. Springer. pp. 77–107. doi:10.1007/0-387-25228-2_3. ISBN 978-0-387-25228-5.
  3. ↑ Fafinski, Stefan (2006). "Access Denied: Computer Misuse in an Era of Technological Change". The Journal of Criminal Law. 70 (5): 424–442. doi:10.1350/jcla.2006.70.5.424. ISSN 0022-0183.
  4. ↑ Chen, Thomas M.; Robert, Jean-Marc (2004). "The Evolution of Viruses and Worms". In Chen, William W.S. (ed.). Statistical Methods in Computer Security. doi:10.1201/9781420030884. ISBN 978-0-429-13161-5.


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