13 Sep 2005
"My client didn't write the worm", claims lawyer representing Zotob suspect
The lawyer representing the 18-year-old Moroccan suspected of
writing the Zotob worm has told the media that his client was not
the author of the malicious code that struck organizations
across the globe in August.
As Farid Essebar appeared in Rabat's criminal court today, his
lawyer Mohamed Sertate told AFP that his client "did not develop
the Zotob virus but did participate in the creation of a worm that
infected computer systems." The Zotob worm exploited a critical
security vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows 2000 software.
Sertate claimed that it was a Turkish national and not his
teenage client, who was responsible for the creation of the virus.
On the same day as Essebar's arrest, 23-year-old Attila Ekici was
arrested in
southern Turkey.
"The authorities will need to unravel a tangled web to find out
precisely who was responsible for what in the complicated case of
the Zotob worm," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant at Sophos. "Security experts at Sophos
believe it is likely that a number of people are likely to have
been involved, some with the writing and distributing of the worm,
and some with the criminal use of data it attempted to steal from
innocent users."
Sophos continues to recommend that companies protect all tiers
of their organization - their desktops, servers and email gateways
- with automatically updated anti-virus
software to reduce the risk of infection.
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing complete security solutions that are simple to deploy, manage, and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, mobile and network security solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.