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Microsoft Secretly Beheads Notorious Waledac Botnet

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the if-you-cut-off-one-head-do-two-grow-back dept.

Barence writes "Microsoft has quietly won court approval to deactivate 277 domain names that are being used to control a vast network of infected PCs. The notorious Waledac botnet is being used by Eastern European spammers to send 1.5 billion spam messages every day, and infect hundreds of thousands of machines with malware. In a suit filed in the US District Court of Eastern Virginia, Microsoft accused 27 unnamed defendants of violating federal computer crime laws. It further requested that domain registrar Verisign temporarily deactivate the domains, shutting down the control servers being used to send commands to the machines. The request was secretly approved by District Judge Leonie Brinkema, allowing the action to be taken covertly, preventing Waledac's operators from switching domains."

3 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I see it this way:
    it's quite unsettling that Microsoft can go to some US court and disconnect domains on the other side of the planet, without the disconnected party even knowing or being able to defend themselves.

    This probably reinforces a few people that the control over DNS isn't necessarily in the best hands in the US.

    Not to mention that MS now has a precendent to quickly get rid of sites just by accusing somebody of something, without due process.

  2. Re:It pains me to say this... by NatasRevol · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Hooray for Microsoft?!?!?

    Instead of fixing the problem, they just *very* temporarily blocked some of the access to it.

    Sounds about right.

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  3. All hope is lost here... by dtjohnson · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    1) This will not end botnets
    2) Microsoft doesn't care about ending botnets
    3) Microsoft will never cede control over their user's machines
    4) MS Security patches will always be a finger in a leak
    5) A good rootkit is one that still lets my Windows boot
    6) MS doesn't really care if the Windows on my 6-yr-old laptop has suddenly become non-genuine but WGA still needs those updates
    7) Windows 8 will be about like Windows 7
    8) The average Microsoftie is a bing-blastin', zune totin', IE8 browsin', xbox smokin' sort of a guy.
    9) There is no hope for a better tommorrow...only a more expensive one