Zotob

"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. This worm has been known to spread on Microsoft-ds or TCP port 445. Farid Essebar and Atilla Ekici were arrested for spreading the worm.

Microsoft used 50 investigators and had put a $250,000 reward for the capture of the hacker(s). 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." It was declared that the Zotob worms cost an average of $97,000 as well as 80 hours of cleanup per company affected.^[1]