The arrests of Moroccan Farid Essebar and Turk Atilla Ekici for the creation and spread of the Mytob and Zotob malware highlights a number of important trends for both cyber and national security.

First, the profitability of virus-writing and identity theft has drawn the interest of organized criminal enterprises. According to Louis Reigel (Bio), assistant director of the FBI?s cyber division, ?Cell phones and the Internet have given criminals international opportunities. Like business, crime has gone global.” Identity theft and spam are two of the more prominent money making ventures organized crime can pursue online. It is, therefore, in the interest of organized crime to control a large network of ?zombie? clients, also known as a bot network, to pump out large volumes of spam or to serve as a line of communication for identity theft. As a result, virus writing has become an essential component of on-line organized crime because control of a bot network relies on the ability to infect a network of computers.