HyperVM creator kills himself after security breach

The troubled founder of hosting software firm Lxlabs has committed suicide just hours after one of the company's products was targeted in a major security breach.

K T Ligesh was found dead in his Bangalore home after apparently hanging himself. The 32 year-old developer was serving as president of Lxlabs, which specialises in management software for hosting firms.

His death came shortly after a vulnerability in Lxlabs' HyperVM software led to the data breach.

Attackers exploited a security hole in the software to target hosting firm Vaserv, and around 100,000 web sites were compromised. The company said that it is still working to repair the damage.

Indian authorities do not, however, believe that the breach was the primary cause of Ligesh's suicide. A report in The Times of India claims that Ligesh was struggling with personal problems, including the suicides of his mother and sister several years ago.

The incident is leading some in the security industry to re-examine the way security vulnerabilities are handled, particularly previously unknown or 'zero day' flaws.

"Vulnerability discovery in security research is of the utmost importance, and so is ethical disclosure," wrote McAfee researcher Gaith Taha in a blog post.

"Zero-day vulnerabilities and their exploit counterparts cannot only cost businesses money, but now it seems (if the reports are correct) they can also cost lives."