Andre Yoskowitz
25 Jan 2012 22:17
Microsoft has confirmed this week that it suspects a former employee is behind the massive Kelihos botnet attacks.
The man, Russian citizen Andrey Sabelnikov "wrote and/or participated in creating" the software which infected over 40,000 machines in 2011. Kelihos was used to send spam and malware before being shutdown last September.
Sabelnikov was a former employee in Microsoft's anti-virus division. Sabelnikov is currently working on a freelance basis with a software development and consulting firm, says the BBC. The company notes that thousands of PCs remain infected to this day.
Microsoft bases its allegations "on evidence Microsoft investigators uncovered while analyzing the Kelihos malware."
Kelihos was in charge of 41,000 infected machines sending over 3.8 billion spam emails per day at its peak.