Farid Essebar ( ar, فريد الصبار) (born in 1987, known as Diabl0) is a Moroccan

black hat Black hat, blackhats, or black-hat refers to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Black hat (computer security), a hacker who violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain * Black hat, part of black and white ...

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

. He was one of the two people (along with Turk Atilla Ekici) behind the spread of the

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 ...

computer worm A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It wil ...

that targeted

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s in 2005. Among the affected were

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

Caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...

United Parcel Service United Parcel Service (UPS, stylized as ups) is an American multinational corporation, multinational package delivery, shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company ...

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

and also the

United States Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the I ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

used 50 investigators and had put a $250,000 reward for the capture of the hacker(s). Microsoft's General counsel declared on August 26, 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." Essebar is a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

citizen, also.

Arrest

Intentions

It is believed that his intention was to facilitate

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

forgery

scams A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have def ...

. The

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

believes that Atilla Ekici paid Farid Essebar to

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

the worm.

Other accusations

In July 2006, investigators stated that Essebar may have authored more than 20 viruses.

2014 Arrest

On 17 March 2014, Essebar was arrested in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

after a 2-year investigation by Thai police. The investigation was triggered by a complaint from Swiss authorities over an alleged infiltration of a Swiss bank that caused dozens of billions of dollars' damage.

Trial

On September 15, 2006, a Moroccan court sentenced Essebar to two years of prison.Moroccan authorities sentence two in Zotob computer worm attack
It was reduced to a year on December 15, 2006.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Essebar, Farid 1987 births Living people Computer criminals Moroccan criminals