Microsoft Foils Botnet; New Internet Sheriff?
Microsoft Thursday claimed credit for taking down its second big botnet, as part of its sometime-role as volunteer anti-spam, anti-malware enforcer.
Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) announced that U.S. Marshals had raided hosting providers in seven U.S. cities following a Microsoft DCU operation code-named " Operation b107."
The raids were based on information supplied to the U.S. Marshals Service by Microsoft and were approved by the Seattle federal court in which Microsoft is suing the unnamed operators of the Rustock botnet. Microsoft's description of the operation estimated the Rustock malware had infected as many as a million computers, and that Rustock-infected machines helped send out as many as 30 billion pieces of spam per day, apparently specializing in fake lottery and pharmaceutical offers.
