Microsoft is claiming a total victory—at least for this round—over the ZeroAccess bot-herders whose criminal network was the target of a joint effort among Microsoft, the FBI, Europol, and a group of security vendors.
"I am pleased to report that our disruption effort has been successful, and it appears that the criminals have abandoned their botnet," writes Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel of Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, in the Official Microsoft Blog.
Bot-herders literally signaled their abandonment with a white flag. Part of a message sent to infected computers was "WHITEFLAG" and Boscovich said the team took the message as a victory "which we believe symbolizes that the criminals have decided to surrender control of the botnet. Since that time, we have not seen any additional attempts by the bot-herders to release new code and as a result, the botnet is currently no longer being used to commit fraud."
The company has also dropped its civil suit against the criminals (listed as John Does in court papers) in order to give law enforcement officials free rein to pursue them, Boscovich writes.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon