Microsoft plays whack-a-mole with Waledac

CONTROL OVER 275 DOMAINS that are used by operators of the malware botnet Waledac has been given to Microsoft by a US court.

Microsoft can now shut down the sites and the company does not expect an appeal against the judgment. It said that the botnet's operators have objected to the move in other ways, such as launching a denial-of-service attack on its legal team.

"Our intention with this approach was to disable the command and control infrastructure of the botnet so that new commands could not be issued to the computers which were still infected with the malware, and to maintain that control in the long term while working within the law," said Jeff Williams, group programme manager at the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, in a blog post.

Microsoft was granted the temporary ability to shut down Waledac's domains in February, and the company has reported no new activity from the botnet since March. The job of cleaning up Waledac, however, is not complete. Microsoft must now work with service providers and security groups to notify and clean around 58,000 systems still infected. µ