The DarkComet remote administration tool, which has recently been misused by the Syrian government to spy on its opponents, has reached the end of the line.

"DarkComet RAT ends like this after several years of res/dev and with thousands of users through the world, hundreds of codes lines and over ten versions (if you include synRAT), the source codes will remain private and not for sale," Jean-Pierre Lesueur, the tool's author, wrote on the official page

"This was a very hard decision to take, probably the hardest I ever had because after so many years it's more than just a project, it's a piece of you."

He stated that he made this decision because many users have used the tool for nefarious purposes and because he doesn't want to be held accountable for other people's mistakes - alluding perhaps at the recent arrest of Michael Hogue, the Blackshades RAT project author, by the FBI.

He also mentioned that the fact that the tool was misused by the Syrian government sickened him.

He pointed out that he will not leave the computer security arena, but that his future projects will not have the potential to be used as malware.