TWO young computer programmers from the North-East were yesterday jailed for their part in an international conspiracy to create a computer worm that infected tens of thousands of PCs around the world.

Cousins Andrew Harvey, 24, and Jordan Bradley, 22, spent much of their time alone at their home computers operating as members of a group known as the Thr34t Krew.

Yesterday, they were sentenced to six months and three months respectively after sparking a global cyber-crime investigation.

In a bid to make their own Internet chatroom more secure, Harvey and Bradley used a computer virus that replicated itself and infected thousands of computers worldwide.

The virus, which was known as the TK Worm, gave members of the gang the ability to access infected computers.

At one time, Harvey - whose chatroom name was Doom - used a computer in Texas to access 38,000 connected machines.

Adrian Waterman, prosecuting, said Harvey and Bradley, who called himself Phreeze, had chatted on the Internet about the possibility of obtaining credit card details from computers on the network. But they were interested in the control it gave them rather than lining their pockets.

The authorities were alerted after TK Worm was discovered by Seth Fogey, a computer consultant and author of a book on computer hacking.

The US security services and FBI co-ordinated simultaneous raids on the Thr34t Krew, including the homes of Harvey, in Melden Avenue, Sherburn, County Durham, and Bradley, of Bates Avenue, Darlington.

At an earlier hearing, they admitted conspiracy to cause unauthorised modifications of computers with intent between December 31, 2001 and February 7, 2003.

Wayne Jackson, mitigating for Bradley, said: "He is not a great cyber criminal, he has committed no great wrong. He was was showing off: It's almost akin to the peacock showing his feathers."

Passing sentence in Newcastle Crown Court yesterday, Judge Beatrice Bolton accepted they had not used the worm for nefarious purposes or self gain, but it was to do with power and ego.

But, she said: "Public business and the computing community must have faith in their computers and you demonstrated that two young boys can interfere with a number of computers for a long time and get away with it."