Feb 25, 2010 - 9:48 PM - by
SmogHog
Court Order Helps Microsoft Tear Down Waledac Botnet
Microsoft has been
granted a court order that will cut off some two hundred and seventy seven .com domains that are associated with the notorious Waledac botnet.
With the help of a U.S. federal judge, Microsoft has struck a blow against one of the Internet's worst sources of spam: the notorious Waledac botnet. Microsoft said late Wednesday that it had been granted a court order that will cut off 277 .com domains associated with the botnet.
Many of the affected domains already appeared to be gone after Microsoft's announcement, but others still appeared to be up.
Verisign could not immediately be reached for comment.
Because Waledac uses peer-to-peer techniques to control hacked boxes as well, Microsoft has more work to do, however.
"It's a busy night tonight and tomorrow is probably going to be a busy day as well," said Jeff Williams, director of Microsoft's Malware Protection Center in an e-mail interview.
Williams didn't provide details on what Microsoft was doing to further attack Waledac, but in its blog posting the company said it is "taking additional technical countermeasures to downgrade much of the remaining peer-to-peer command and control communication within the botnet." Microsoft expects... [
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