Hosting Firm Takedown Bags 500,000 Bots

[Peaches]

Hosting firm takedown bags 500,000 bots

The shutdown of McColo knocks out a record number of bots, says researcher

By Gregg Keizer

November 18, 2008 (Computerworld)

"The shutdown last week of a U.S.-based Web hosting company crippled more than 500,000 bots, or compromised computers, which are no longer able to receive commands from criminals, a security researcher said today.

Although the infected PCs are still operational, the previously-planted malware that tells them what to do can't receive instructions because of the shutdown last week of McColo Corp.

"Half a million bots are either offline or not communicating" with their command-and-control servers, estimated Joe Stewart, director of malware research at SecureWorks Inc.

McColo was disconnected from the Internet by its upstream service providers at the urging of researchers who believed the company's servers hosted a staggering amount of cybercriminal activity, including the command-and-control servers of some of the planet's biggest botnets. Those collections of infected PCs were responsible for as much as 75% of the spam sent worldwide. When McColo went dark, spam volumes dropped by more than 40% in a matter of hours."

Read here: http://www.computerworld.com/action/articl...;intsrc=hm_list