Microsoft has been given the green light by a Virginia court to cut off 277 internet domains associated with Waledac botnet, one of the ten biggest networks of compromised computers in the US and a major source of spam and malware.
The fact that the software giant decided to attack spammers is reassuring. However, all the other condition equal, those who abide by law are much more restricted in actions than those who don't.
Botnets generated approximately 90% of all email spam. However, it is not that obvious that Waledac shutdown would result in noticeable reduce of spam flow. Most companies and organizations express skeptical views about the results of this assault. "It's one of the smallest botnets out there, and the court order appears to have had very little effect on its output," says Matt Sergeant, anti-spam researcher with Symantec's MessageLabs.
The irony is Microsoft is the corporation that releases the operating system used on the absolute majority of infected computers comprising botnets.
It is becoming obvious that no amount of legal actions could defeat the cybercrime, spam included. The principles of computer security should be clear to everyone, and everyone should understand the immediate and distant consequences of neglecting the basic rules of security.
However, as The Federal Drive comments, "even though 90 percent of school administrators believe cybersecurity education is crucial, only about of third of them said their schools offered classes"
To defeat botnets, all the computer users, worldwide, should be taught how to behave in cyberspace, what rules should be followed, and, most important, the users must follow the security rules. No exceptions.
The task looks next to impossible.
So the primary question remains: will the attack on a botnet mark the era of cleaner Net, or all those actions will only perform an artificial selection of botnets, making them to evolve into something much more stronger and dangerous?
Let's remain optimists.
