Santa Clara is the saint of semiconductors. Cough
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Microsoft can kill botnets
VOLUNTEER INTERNET POLICE OUTFIT Microsoft has begun the process of wiping out the Waledac botnet, a notorious spam network that rained down missives about all kinds of scams onto Hotmail users.
The firm said that Waledac had been one of the largest botnets in the US and a major spam producer. It is esimated that it was made up of hundreds of thousands of infected computers and could have sent over 1.5 billion spam emails a day. For example, in eighteen days in December last year, approximately 651 million spam emails were indentified as coming from Waledac to Hotmail accounts alone. That is one hell of a lot of dodgy adverts.
The Waledac botnet takedown began earlier this week in an operation known as "Operation b49", and according to Microsoft it is the result of months of both investigation and technical preparation. Months in the planning maybe, but the moves this week have had a quick effect.
In a Technet post Tim Cranton, associate general counsel at Microsoft, said, "At Microsoft, we don't accept the idea that botnets are a fact of life. We are a founding member of the Botnet Task Force, a public-private partnership to join industry and government in the fight against bots. That's why I'm proud to announce that through legal action and technical cooperation with industry partners, we have executed a major botnet takedown of Waledac, a large and well-known "spambot." Take that, Waledac.
This is the result of a court decision that granted Microsoft the right to cut off 277 Internet domains believed to be run by criminals associated with Waledac. However, the work is not over and Microsoft urged Internet users to protect themselves or risk becoming enablers for such cyber criminals.
"Three days into the effort, Operation b49 has effectively shut down connections to the vast majority of Waledac-infected computers, and our goal is to make that disruption permanent," added Cranton. "But the operation hasn't cleaned the infected computers and is not a silver bullet for undoing all the damage we believe Waledac has caused. Although the zombies are now largely out of the bot-herders' control, they are still infected with the original malware. To help make sure you are not infected by this or other botnets, our advice is to follow the 'protect your PC' guidance." µ
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Did you notice that funny smirk while you took the bat to his head? turns out he was able to press the enter key before the first blow, using his hax skills to drain your bank accounts. epic fail. we applaud your efforts though
Stealing a bike is a crime too....but it's a bit your own fault if you left it unlocked.
In windows the only thing you need is a link for people to click on and bad-stuff can be installed.
Windows doesn't have holes, Linux has holes, Windows has craters!!
If your bank was that insecure you would have shouted sooo loud all the way to the police.
But your computer doesn't need to be safe?
You do not even have to look for the Windows of opportunity...the stupid OS is called Windows...and Windows means? Yep you got it: Openings :-)
Ever seen a Safe with Windows???? LOL
the only reason there is holes in MS products, is becuase people with no lifes (aka hackers) are trying to find them, and then publish the details just to feel important about themselves and/or exploit them just to make their toes tinkle.
Don't blame Microsoft, blame the socially challenged people with no girlfriends. Instead of chasing girls like they should be, they are chasing holes in MS products.
A hacker is like a thief to me. deserves no respect, and if I see one I will take a bat to his head as self defense.
When do they close down the company that made this all possible?
Namely Microsoft!
They kept Hotmail alive to be abused!
They kept holes in Windows for years and years!
They kept IE unsecure as hell!!
They kept Automated-installing possible!!
Best way to kill Spam is kill Microsoft!!
The essential point is that M$ went to *court* and got the domain names blocked by whoever runs them. That's good (gee, never thought I'd say that of M$...) but anyone with bucks and traceroute (or whatever for emails) could do it.
And it's only a *temporary* restraining order, SO I suspect M$ is going to throw this case to establish some sort of precedent. (Gee, we TRIED, but that wacky judge wouldn't let us, so now we're not even gonna try no more. Darn.) -- I'm going to be cynical so long as M$ makes a PR stunt out of what I think should be routine for them.
(Okay, it's possible they're sincere IF public good just happens to coincide with their interests.)
Our systems have been seeing record numbers of crap e-mail since M$ took action.
"Microsoft urged Internet users to protect themselves or risk becoming enablers for such cyber criminals."
I'm guessing they don't mean by uninstalling Windows :)