TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Morocco Jails Two For Disrupting U.S. Computers

Morocco Jails Two For Disrupting U.S. Computers

Reuters News Wire (reuters@telecom-digest.org)
Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:26:09 -0500

A Moroccan court on Tuesday jailed two men for one and two years for
unleashing computer worms that disrupted networks across the United
States, court officials and lawyers said.

The court in Sale, twin city to the Moroccan capital Rabat, convicted
19-year old science student Farid Essebar and his friend Achraf
Bahloul, 22, for their role in creating and spreading the Zotob worm
last year.

Moroccan authorities said the two men had one accomplice in Turkey who
was named earlier by the FBI as Atilla Ekici.

Zotob caused computer outages at more than 100 U.S. companies,
including major media outlets like CNN and the New York Times. But it
did not create widespread havoc like software programs such as SQL
Slammer and MyDoom.

"The court convicted the two men for conspiracy, theft, using forged
credit cards and illegal access to computer systems," a court official
said.

It sentenced Essebar and Bahloul to two years and one year in prison
respectively. The two men' lawyers said they planned to lodge appeals
soon.

The FBI said close teamwork with Microsoft Corp. and authorities in
Morocco and Turkey helped net Essebar and Ekici 12 days after the
attack.

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

For more news and headlines each day, please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Paul F. Roberts: "Spammers Jump on Latest MS Hole"
Go to Previous message: Neal McLain: "Is Anybody on This List Using Wikimapia Yet?"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page