Two men from the North East of England have been charged in connection with the TK Worm, also known as Troj/TKBot-A, which is claimed to have caused £5.5m of damage.

Jordan Bradley, 20, of Darlington, and Andrew Harvey, 22, of Durham, are accused of being members of a hacking group known as the 'Thr34t-Krew', which claimed responsibility for launching the Trojan worm.

Their offences are alleged to have taken place between 1 January 2002 and 6 February 2003.

At the time, the National High Tech Crime Unit estimated that the worm caused around £5.5m worth of damage and infected more than 18,000 computers.

The charges allege that the pair conspired together and with others "to effect unauthorised modifications to the contents of computers with the intent to impair the operation of those computers".

Bradley and Harvey are due to appear before magistrates on 18 September.

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