Microsoft identifies suspected Kelihos botnet author
Four months after taking down the Kelihos botnet, Microsoft today identified the man it believes was behind the massive infection designed to deliver spam and steal data.
In an amended complaint (PDF) filed today with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the software giant accused Andrey N. Sabelnikov, a resident of St. Petersburg, Russia, of writing the code for and participated in the creation of the Kelihos malware. The complaint further alleges that Sabelnikov used the malware to control and nurture the Kelihos botnet.
Kelihos comprised about 41,000 infected computers worldwide and was capable of sending 3.8 billion spam e-mails per day before Microsoft put a stop to it last September, according to Microsoft.