Now that authorities have apprehended the alleged writer of Zotob, an interesting facet of the story has emerged: Diabl0, the author, may have been paid to write the virus. A story from Elizabeth Montalbano of the IDG News Service identifies the suspects as Atilla Ekici, 21, of Turkey and Farid Essebar, 18, of Morocco. Montalbano reports: Ekici went under the code name of “Coder” and Essebar used the code name “Diabl0,” said Louis M. Reigel III, assistant director of the FBI Cyber Division, in a conference call Friday. Ekici apparently paid Essebar a sum of money to write the worms, but was not involved in their creation himself, Reigel said. “We believe that there was financial gain on the part of the Moroccan in the relationship,” he said.The Boston Globe reported that the FBI does not at this point know the motives of the two men, but that the investigation is ongoing. The article also quoted a security firm executive as saying that today’s virus writers are likely part of organized crime. Microsoft issued a press release congratulating Turkish and Moroccan authorities, and the company couldn’t resist plugging its own contributions and how it worked with the FBI to track down the virus writers. On August 17 security firm MessageLabs identified the author as the same person who wrote the Mytob worm, though Essebar was not yet known by name. Technology Industry