Authorities in Morocco have sentenced the two authors of the Zotob worm for their involvement in creating and spreading the worm.
The two men, Farid Essebar and Achraf Bahloul, were sentenced to two years and one year in jail respectively.
They created havoc around the world in summer 2005 with the worm, which was created to exploit the critical MS05-039 security vulnerability in Windows.
Firms affected by the malware included CNN, The Financial Times, ABC and The New York Times.
Anti-virus firm Sophos said they believed the creation of the Zotob worm was financially motivated.
“The Zotob gang took over the computers of innocent companies with the intention of making money,” Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, told UK news website vnunet.
