Microsoft Leads Sting Operation Against Zeus Botnets

wiredmikey writes "Microsoft, in what it called its 'most complex effort to disrupt botnets to date,' and in collaboration with partners from the financial services industry, has successfully taken down operations that fuel a number of botnets that make up the notorious Zeus family of malware. In what Microsoft is calling 'Operation b71,' Microsoft and its co-plaintiffs, escorted by U.S. Marshals, seized command and control (C&C) servers in two hosting locations on March 23 in Scranton, Pennsylvania and Lombard, Illinois. The move was to seize and preserve data and evidence from the botnets for the case. In addition to seizing the C&C servers, the group took down two IP addresses behind the Zeus command and control structure, and secured 800 domains that Microsoft is now monitoring and using to help identify computers infected by Zeus."

Comments

Re:Physical Seizures?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Marshals performed the seizures. Did you not RTFA?

Re:Physical Seizures?

[Nyder]

TFA:

Microsoft has conducted physical seizures

Since when can a CORPORATION perform seizures of private property???

When it gets a court order and has proper officials (in this case, US Marshals) with them, like it appears happened.

Re:Physical Seizures?

[amiller2571]

Microsoft and its co-plaintiffs, escorted by U.S. Marshals

It also contains this :P