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Microsoft Looks To Courts For Botnet Takedowns

Posted by samzenpus on from the letting-the-man-do-the-work dept.

angry tapir writes "Microsoft has seen a dramatic drop in the number of computers infected with Waledac, a piece of malicious software affiliated with a botnet that was once responsible for a massive amount of spam. In the second quarter of this year, the company cleaned only 29,816 computers infected with Waledac, down from 83,580 computers in the first quarter of the year. The drop in the number of infected machines shows the success of the legal action Microsoft took earlier in the year, according to the company."

1 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Ok, what about malscripted webpages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Is Linux "immune" to malscripted webpages on malicious sites with say, harmful javascript in them? How about bogus ad banners that have harmful javascript in them, is Linux "immune" to that also??

    You sure that in this case:

    "Linux could have problems, but the security holes found are much harder to exploit due to the way everything is set up by default, and how the system is used. A lot of Windows security problems have been "as designed"." - by unapersson (38207) on Thursday October 14, @05:06AM (#33891268) Homepage

    ?

    I mean, here are some examples:

    1.) Linux has its root/superuser/admin usage "turned off" (meaning you cannot logon as root) by default, so you have to use a SUDO. Well, Windows has its equivalent in UAC (except windows users CAN login as Administrator, but, they are NOT setup that way by default... whereas afaik? You cannot logon to Linux as ROOT itself).

    2.) Penguins here keep "trumpeting" that their software is ONLY AVAILABLE via rpm/apt-get/yum (repositories) and yet there ARE other sources of Linux wares, not just via repositories (so who are they trying to fool here?)... just as their are in Windows from "shareware/freeware" oriented websites.

    3.) Windows has its regular "Patch Tuesday", every 2nd Tuesday of a month - Linux has its regular checks for security & other updates also (and I see this happen quite a LOT on Linux, in fact, I was up to 51 replacements for security patches alone iirc, and in ONLY 1 month's usage of KUbuntu 10.4.1 in fact, before I went to KUbuntu 10.10 recently) - BOTH need and do get patches for security, regularly, so it's not like Linux is "immune to hacks/cracks"!

    Now - the ONLY REAL REASON Windows is attacked so much?

    The only reason Windows machines are more attacked is because more people use them, and, they use them for things like banking transactions from home OR shopping via credit card online. This alone makes them the MOST attractive target for botnet makers (or, any malware maker/malicious scripted page online etc./et al).

    I.E.-> Thieves online are NO DIFFERENT from thieves in the real world. For example, pickpockets do NOT go where there are little to no people, they hit trainstations, subways, malls or any place large amounts of folks gather. The same holds true online, and where do the MOST folks "gather"? On Windows.

    (Going back now to my init. question above I started this with: I mean, nobody can tell me that a malscripted website page or maliciously scripted banner ad couldn't be tailored to attacks Macs or Linux rigs, because javascript works on them and their webbrowsers too, which are the same as the ones used on Windows for the most part (the "big 4" in IE, FireFox, and Opera or Chrome) and they use javascript and keep it turned on, by default, in Linux too!).