"The Zotob worm and several variations of it, known as Rbot.cbq, SDBot.bzh and Zotob.d, infected computers at companies such as ABC, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times, and Caterpillar Inc." — Business Week, August 16, 2005.Zotob was a 2005 computer worm whiched exploits security vulnerabilities in Microsoft operating systems like Windows 2000, including the MS05-039 plug-and-play vulnerability.
Microsoft's General counsel declared on 26 August 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."
[clarification needed] On August 26, 2005, Farid Essebar and Atilla Ekici were arrested in Morocco and Turkey, respectively.
Diabl0 is believed to have incorporated the code of a Russian nicknamed houseofdabus [11] whose journal has been shut down by authorities,[12] just after the arrest of Diabl0.
Those declarations suggest that Essebar is only a part of a larger group of Dark-side hackers behind the spread of the malware.
[14] Farid Essebar (Arabic: فريد الصبار) (born in 1987, known as Diabl0) is a Moroccan black hat hacker.