Suspected Zotob authors arrested

[phishphreek]

Law enforcement officials have arrested two men suspected of unleashing of a pair of computer worms, including last week's Zotob, which hit servers at Holden, American Express, The New York Times and elsewhere.

Farid Essebar, age 18, a Moroccan national born in Russia, was arrested in Morocco, and 21-year-old Atilla Ekici, a Turkish resident, was arrested in Turkey, Paul Bresson, a spokesman for the FBI, said on Friday. Both suspects were detained on Thursday and will be prosecuted in the countries in which they were arrested, Bresson said.

Bresson said that Essebar, who went by the nickname "Diabl0," and Ekici, known as "Coder," are suspected of creating both the Mytob and Zotob worms.

Read more @ ZDNet

Do they ever make public how they catch these suspects?

[Cemetric]

Do they ever make public how they catch these suspects?

I guess by offering large amounts of money to anyone that can provide a good tip or good clues and maybe the whereabouts of the makers.

So in other words ... the makers brag ...someone that's tired of the braging calls the FBI , rats and gets payed big time when these makers are convicted.

As someone said once ... It's the human factor !!

C.

[dinowuff]

phishphreek80

You know how the guys over at sans and dshield track traffic and what not, IMO I would say a combo of finding the starting location and then following the packet. No not the actual packet but the traffic.. Didn't this worm call home? I think it was scanning 1433 so wouldn't tracing traffic on that port - back to the source, be rather easy if you had the resources.

Just rambling

[thehorse13]

Here is a picture of one of our fine friends being hauled off to jail. He looks very happy...

http://news.com.com/2300-7349_3-5843998-1.html

[kr5kernel]

You would think though that is they can write intricate virii that you would work pretty hard to not getting yourself traced. I wonder how much the payout is for the stoolies that end up getting the authors caught?

[dinowuff]

Originally posted here by kr5kernel
You would think though that is they can write intricate virii that you would work pretty hard to not getting yourself traced.

Of course, but why? I write a bot to collect bank account info. I'm not so good at phishing, so I write my own little smtp engine and let the little thing replicate itself through address books around the world, editing host files and what not. My little virus now has to tell me what info it's gathered.

Otherwise, my little bot just trashes your SAM or Reg and never lets me know how it's doing.

[kr5kernel]

totally understood. And I guess thats why people at SAN are making the big box while the authors get arrested. he he.