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Microsoft names former anti-virus employee as Kelihos botnet suspect
Reported by Dean Wilson on Tuesday, January 24 2012 11:28 pm
Microsoft named Andrey Sabelnikov, a former employee of an anti-virus software firm, as a suspect behind the Kelihos botnet, which was responsible for a large proportion of the world's spam emails.
Microsoft named Andrey Sabelnikov, a former employee of an anti-virus software firm, as a suspect behind the Kelihos botnet, which was responsible for a large proportion of the world's spam emails.
The company filed an amended complaint with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, citing evidence that Sabelnikov wrote the code for the Kelihos malware and created or participated in the creation of the botnet.
These are serious allegations, but Microsoft believes that its evidence, which is based on analysing the malware, is solid. It claims that Sabelnikov not only created the malware, but operated and maintained it.
Sabelnikov previous worked for anti-virus firm Agnitum from 2005 until 2008 and is currently working on a freelance basis with a software development and consulting firm. It is possible that his time with the security firm helped him gain the knowledge and expertise needed to construct the botnet.
The Kelihos botnet spanned 41,000 computers and sent close to 4 billion spam emails every day. Microsoft and Kaspersky Labs took down the botnet in a coordinated strike in September 2011, ending a significant volume of spam and malware messages, but thousands of computers are still believed to be infected.
Source: BBC
Image Credit: Tom-b
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