Microsoft Claims Rustock Botnet Takedown

Microsoft is claiming it took down the massive Rustock botnet, in a wide-ranging operation that saw servers seized in multiple cities.

Estimates of Rustock’s size varied between 1.1 million and 1.7 million infected computers, and the botnet may have been responsible for 47.5 percent of all spam sent worldwide by the end of 2010.

In a March 17 posting on the Microsoft on the Issues blog, Richard Boscovich, senior attorney for Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU), claims the company squashed Rustock following a months-long investigation. In addition, Microsoft has apparently filed suit against the Rustock botnet’s anonymous operators, following a procedure pioneered when the company helped take down the Waledac botnet. In the case of Rustock, the takedown involved bringing the case before U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, in addition to a “coordinated seizure of command and control servers in multiple hosting locations escorted by the U.S. Marshals Service.

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