[ISN] Microsoft, Feds Pull Plug on Spam Network

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 01:41:48 -0600 (CST)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703328404576207173861008758.html

By NICK WINGFIELD
The Wall Street Journal
MARCH 17, 2011

Microsoft Corp. and federal law enforcement agents seized computer 
equipment from Internet hosting facilities across the U.S. in a sweeping 
legal attack designed to cripple the leading source of junk email on the 
Internet.

Microsoft launched the raids as part of a civil lawsuit filed in federal 
court in Seattle in early February against unnamed operators of the 
Rustock "botnet," a vast network of computers around the globe infected 
with malicious software that allows its masterminds to distribute 
enormous volumes of spam, peddling everything from counterfeit software 
to pharmaceuticals.

In recent years, Microsoft has stepped up legal actions against a 
variety of Internet nuisances like spam that it believes inflict harm on 
its product and reputation. Spam taxes the servers of its Hotmail email 
service, and impacts the Internet experience of users of Microsoft 
software like Windows and Office. The malicious code used to form spam 
botnets often exploits security vulnerabilities in products like 
Windows.

That lawsuit was unsealed late Thursday by a federal judge, at 
Microsoft's request, after company executives said they dealt a 
seemingly lethal blow to the botnet in their raids on Wednesday.

[...]


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Received on Fri Mar 18 2011 - 00:41:48 PDT

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