Microsoft wins Rustock civil case, passes evidence to FBI
Microsoft has prevailed in its civil case against the operators of the Rustock botnet, and now is handing over its evidence to the FBI in the hopes it will pursue a criminal case, the company announced on Thursday.
U.S. District Court Judge James Robart, sitting in Washington state, earlier this month ruled that the tens of thousands of domain names and IP addresses used to host the prolific botnet were to be disabled for a period of two years.
The move follows a Microsoft-led takedown operation in March, which involved cutting off command-and-control centers from being able to communicate with Rustock-infected machines, and filing a lawsuit against 11 unnamed defendants. Now, Microsoft is working with the FBI to ensure the masterminds behind the botnet, at one time responsible for almost half of the world's spam, are “held accountable for their actions,” Richard Boscovich, senior attorney with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, wrote in a blog post Thursday.
