After seeking approval from a court, Microsoft have been allowed to shutdown a network of computers responsible for spreading up to 1.5bn spam emails per day. Covering the globe the 277 internet domains were allowed to be shutdown after Microsoft showed them to “command and control” a botnet.
Networks of computers, which have been hacked, Botnet systems aim to send out thousands of spam mails per day. The 277 internet domains highlighted by Microsoft were shown to be part of the Waledac network, a system of approximately 90,000 hacked PCs. Revealing that in December between the 3rd and 21st “approximately 651 million spam emails attributable to Waledac were directed to Hotmail accounts alone”, Microsoft said the system was one of American’s largest botnet operations. Applying to a court in Virginia, they joined forces with security company Symantec and intelligence firm Shadowserver to order owner of .com domains Verisign to shutdown specific sites.
Expressing that though the network had been shutdown users should run malware and virus programmes to ensure that computers were not infected, Microsoft heralded the “operation b49” order by the court a legal first. “This action has quickly and effectively cut off traffic to Waledac at the .com or domain registry level, severing the connection between the command and control centres of the botnet and most of its thousands of zombie computers around the world,” a spokesperson said.
