Farid Essebar

Farid Essebar ( _ar. فريد الصبار) (born in 1987, known as Diabl0) is a Moroccan black hat hacker. He was one of the two masterminds (along with Turkish Atilla Ekici) behind the spread of the Zotob Computer worm that targeted Windows 2000 operating systems in 2005. Among the affected were CNN, ABC News, New York Times, Caterpillar, Boeing and also United States Department of Homeland Security.

Microsoft used 50 investigators and had put a $250,000 reward for the capture of the cracker(s). Microsoft's General counsel declared in August 26, 2005 that "The fact that we were able to see these arrests in less than two weeks and see them halfway around the world really drives that point home."

Arrest

"Main: Arrest of the coders"

Intentions

It is believed that his intention was to facilitate credit card forgery scams. The FBI believes that Atilla Ekici paid Farid Essebar to code the worm.

Other accusations

On July 2006, invistigators stated that Essebar may have authored more than 20 viruses. [ [http://www.pcwelt.de/news/englishnews/118950/ (pcwelt.de) - "Zotob author may be virus mastermind"] ]

Trial

On September 15, 2006, a Moroccan court sentenced Essebar to two years of prison [ [http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel06/zotob091306.htm Moroccan authorities sentence two in Zotob computer worm attack] ] . It was reduced on December 15th, 2006 to a year.

Notes