Guide Note

Robert Matthew Bentley was sentenced to 41 months in prison for hacking into the network of marketing firm Newell Rubbermaid in 2006. Bentley hijacked the firm's network to create a "botnet", a collection of computers that in turn spammed other computers with malicious software.

Fast Facts

1. Born: ca. 1987
2. Online name: "LSDigital"¹
3. Plea: Guilty
4. Convicted of: Computer fraud and conspiracy to commit computer fraud
5. Sentence: 41 months in prison
6. Fined: $65,000¹
7. Victim: Newell Rubbermaid
8. $ damage caused by attack: $150,000²

Bentley worked for two Dutch-based companies that paid hackers a fee for each computer upon which they could place the adware Dollar Revenue. Dollar Revenue causes unwanted pop-up ads to appear on the victim's computer. In order to successfully infect many computers at the same time, Bentley created a botnet using Newell Rubbermaid's European computer system.