PayPal virus writing scammer pleads guilty

A Minnesota man who tried to defraud PayPal customers through a phishing scam has pleaded guilty to wire fraud. Alec Scott Papierniak, 20, of Mankato in Minnesota, also admitted using viral code to further his fraudulent activities at an appearance in a federal court in San Jose on Tuesday. Papierniak was able to siphon money from online accounts after he tricked users into handing over their user names and passwords via bogus security alerts. These bogus alerts directed users to a maliciously constructed Web site run by Papierniak, instead of the genuine PayPal site.

In pleading guilty, Papierniak also admitted to emailing a "key logger" virus to PayPal users, again with theft in mind. Both MiMail-I and MiMail-J fit the bill, but we're not certain if either virus was involved in this case.

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