Arrests made related to Zotob, Rbot, and Mytob

Arrests made related to Zotob, Rbot, and Mytob

Several people have been arrested in Turkey and Morocco with charges of connection with the recent spate of worm attacks on the windows Operating System powered computers. The information was released by Microsoft, which worked in conjunction with the Turkish and Moroccan authorities, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Microsoft provided these government agencies technical information and analytical support, which helped them gather evidence and arrest the people currently under suspicion. Law enforcement officers in Rabat, Morocco, and in Adana and Ankara in Turkey, arrested the people they consider were responsible for the development and the spread of the worm on the Internet.

All these worms exploited issues in the Microsoft’s Windows 2000 Operating System, which is still very popular in the corporate environment. They infected the machines with malware that shifted complete control over the PCs to the hackers who launched the attacks on other vulnerable machines on the Internet. Incidentally, Microsoft had already released patches for these bugs before the worms attacked. However, it looks like not everyone was up-to-date.