A Russian man accused by Microsoft of being the alleged operator of a huge botnet attack, has insisted that he is innocent.

The software giant recently claimed that Andrey Sabelnikov "wrote and/or participated in creating" the harmful Kelihos botnet, which infected thousands of machines.

But Sabelnikov told The BBC that he was "surprised and shocked" at the accusation, adding that he "will prove my innocence."

"I was very surprised and shocked to read in the press that I was being accused of a grievous crime in connection with the Kelihos botnet," Sabelnikov said.

He stressed that he is 'absolutely not guilty' and has never been involved in handling botnets or any other similar programmes.

"I want to highlight that I have no connection either to the activity of Kelihos or to the distribution of spam," Sabelnikov said.

"Unfortunately, the avalanche of publications in the press, referencing inaccurate and distorted information, has inadvertently inflicted a great deal of psychological damage on the companies for whom I have worked or am working, and also adversely affected their business reputation," he added.

Botnets like Kelihos are created by the spread of malicious software, often via infected emails or web browser vulnerabilities.

Each "bot", as they are known, is a hijacked computer, which can be used by hackers for any number of illegal activities.

At Kelihos' peak, it was said to have been in control of 41,000 infected machines and able to send over 3.8 billion spam emails in a day. (ANI)