Friday, August 26, 2005

Suspected Zotob Worm Authors Arrested

Security Fix: "Suspected Zotob Worm Authors Arrested
UPDATE, 4:35 p.m. ET: I've put together a larger story on this after an interesting conversation with top officials at Microsoft and the FBI.
Two men were arrested Thursday on suspicion of releasing the 'Zotob' and 'Mytob' worms, variants of which have infected thousands of computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system. The arrests were announced today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Moroccan authorities, working with the FBI, arrested Farid Essebar, 18, a Moroccan national born in Russia who went by the screen moniker �Diabl0.� Arrested in Turkey was Atilla Ekici, aka �Coder,� age 21. Both individuals will be subject to local prosecutions, the FBI said.
The first Zotob worm emerged Aug. 14, just four days after Microsoft released a patch to fix the security hole that the worm exploited. A few days later, several companies -- including CNN, The New York Times, and ABC News -- reported widespread infections by the worm. The worm also is thought to have temporarily disabled the systems that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security uses to screen airline passengers entering the United States."

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