Its malware scanner cleaned more then 500k PCs infected with the bot in '07
Microsoft today took credit for crushing the Storm botnet, saying that the malware search-and-destroy tool it distributes to Windows users disinfected so many bots that the hackers threw in the towel.
"They realized they were in our gun sights," said Jimmy Kuo, a principal architect with Microsoft's malware protection center, the group responsible for the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). Microsoft updates and automatically redistributes the software tool to Windows users each month on Patch Tuesday.
Last year, said Kuo, the criminals behind the Storm Trojan -- malware designed to compromise PCs and add them to a botnet, or collection of infected machines -- tried to keep pace with Microsoft and the MSRT. "They were anticipating our monthly release [of MSRT]," said Kuo, "with new versions that were ready to go immediately before our release."
View: Full Article @ Computer World
Microsoft today took credit for crushing the Storm botnet, saying that the malware search-and-destroy tool it distributes to Windows users disinfected so many bots that the hackers threw in the towel.
"They realized they were in our gun sights," said Jimmy Kuo, a principal architect with Microsoft's malware protection center, the group responsible for the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). Microsoft updates and automatically redistributes the software tool to Windows users each month on Patch Tuesday.
Last year, said Kuo, the criminals behind the Storm Trojan -- malware designed to compromise PCs and add them to a botnet, or collection of infected machines -- tried to keep pace with Microsoft and the MSRT. "They were anticipating our monthly release [of MSRT]," said Kuo, "with new versions that were ready to go immediately before our release."
View: Full Article @ Computer World
People with decent anti-virus solutions are unlikely to be part of a botnet. Its the people that sit with no firewall and anti virus that are the key part of botnets but if Automatic Updates push the MASRT and remove offending stuff then it makes things dififcault.
I imagine a botnet is a lot more pointless if it reduces in size by about 70%
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