Plea to Interpol: Take Down Gromozon

After learning about those "sneaky, conniving, malicious Gromozon creators" who inserted code in Gromozon implicating Marco Giuliani of authoring it, I have been watching Marco's site, PC al Sicuro, for updates. In catching up with my reading tonight, I want to share the latest update:

"And, just to talk about something different, we can talk about Gromozon. This evening I discovered a webpage that drops Gromozon and it contains all random words joined to my surname or part of it.

"

"Everyone" involved in the security community knows that Marco is a dedicated malware researcher for Prevx, a highly respected company. Marco works behind the scenes with members of the security community, freely providing help and guidance to malware fighters and security analysts.

In reading the above-linked update, I spotted the following comment another reader posted:

"i “think” Interpol is investigating the case, collaborating with investigators of italy and eastern europe - the young guy behind gromozon will be caught sooner or later"

I for one hope that Interpol is successful in catching the Gromozon creator sooner rather than later, before Gromozon does more damage to the computers of innocent people. In addition to the damage already caused to computers, add to that one hefty case of libel*.

For readers who are not familiar with Gromozon, consider yourself lucky. Gromozon is a rootkit. Background information on rootkits, including additional reference readings and a link to Marco's original analysis of the Gromozon rootkit is available in my earlier blog post, "Deep Roots".

*libel:

1.	Law. a. defamation by written or printed words, pictures, or in any form other than by spoken words or gestures. b. the act or crime of publishing it. c. a formal written declaration or statement, as one containing the allegations of a plaintiff or the grounds of a charge.

2.	anything that is defamatory or that maliciously or damagingly misrepresents.

–verb (used with object)

3.	to publish a libel against.

4.	to misrepresent damagingly.

5.	to institute suit against by a libel, as in an admiralty court.

From Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1). Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. 08 Nov. 2006.