Microsoft made a compelling case to the U.S. District Court of Eastern Virginia, which has granted a motion essentially handing over to Microsoft permanent ownership of 276 Web domains used as command and control centers by the Waledac spam botnet.
District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema issued the temporary restraining order to take all 276 domains offline, an unusual move since the owner of the domains weren’t in court to plead their case. This procedure is known as “ex parte,” and normally a judge wouldn’t give away property without the rightful owners present. As far as the judge is concerned, however, the registrants had every chance to step foward after being provided notices online and in print publications.
“It’s open season on botnets,” Microsoft senior attorney Richard Boscovich Sr. said in a statement. “The hunting licenses have been handed out, and we’re coming back for more.”
Microsoft said that during one recent seven-day period, it counted 58,000 PCs attempting 14.6 million connections to the 276 Waledac domains. At its peak in 2009, Waledac was responsible for some 1.5 billion spam messages per day.
via:
Judge Helps Microsoft Seize Control of Botnet Domains
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