Microsoft is offering a $250,000 bounty on finding the
creators of the damagingDownadup/Conficker virus.
Since it was first
spread on the internet last autumn, the worm has
infected millions of computers worldwide.
Redmond is offering the reward as it views Conficker as a
criminal attack.
"People who write this malware have to be held accountable,"
said George Stathakopulos of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing
group.
He
told
the BBC Microsoft was "not prepared to sit back and let this
kind of activity go unchecked".
"Our message is very clear, whoever wrote this code caused
significant pain to our customers, and we are sending a message
that we will do everything we can to help with their arrest," said
Stathakopulos.
Download the
Microsoft patch to disable the autrun feature used by the virus
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