The recent leak of source code for a powerful piece of bank-fraud malware may spawn a surge of advanced botnet attacks carried out by copycat hackers who previously didn't have the skill to pull off such feats, security researchers warned.

Carberp, as the botnet-creation toolkit is known, previously sold in underground crime forums for as much as $40,000 a license. In the last week, source code for the crimeware began circulating online for free and can now be acquired by many people who have a few hours to poke around. While the leak is a boon for researchers who want to know as much as possible about the inner workings of sophisticated malware, it also comes with a dark side: it isn't that hard for malware newcomers to get their hands on the 1.88 GB package of code.

"In short, it does not take a genius to get a copy of the leaked source code, which makes this whole thing dangerous," Christopher Elisan, principal malware scientist in security firm RSA's FirstWatch department, wrote in a blog post published Friday. "Any script kiddie, who probably does not understand the technology, can use this which may result in dire consequences. It's like handing a bazooka to a child."

Carberp isn't the first proprietary botnet-creation tool to be leaked. In 2011, complete source code for the ZeuS crimeware kit was also made available online. It gave anyone who knew where to look free access to a potent set of malware-generation tools that normally sell for as much as $10,000. Security reporter Brian Krebs has much more here on the Carberp leak.