China has jailed four men convicted of involvement in a malware-fuelled scam that led to the infection of hundreds of thousands of Windows PCs across the country.

The Fujacks worm converted icons of infected programs into a picture of a panda burning joss sticks, while surreptitiously stealing the user names and passwords of online games players. The worm infected an estimated one million Windows PCs in China, the worst ever outbreak.

Twenty-five-year-old Li Jun, who confessed to creating the malware and selling it on to 12 cohorts for around 100,000 yuan ($12,500), was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Li's alleged clients turned co-accused allegedly made their money back and more by selling black market access to online games.

Wang Lei, Zhang Shun, and Lei Lei were jailed for between one year and two and a half years for their part in the scam at a sentencing hearing before the people's court in Xiantao, Hubei Province.

The case is a rare example of a cybercrime prosecution in China. ®

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