Microsoft Looks To Courts For Botnet Takedowns 93
angry tapir writes "Microsoft has seen a dramatic drop in the number of computers infected with Waledac, a piece of malicious software affiliated with a botnet that was once responsible for a massive amount of spam. In the second quarter of this year, the company cleaned only 29,816 computers infected with Waledac, down from 83,580 computers in the first quarter of the year. The drop in the number of infected machines shows the success of the legal action Microsoft took earlier in the year, according to the company."
Using the law to fix technical shortcomings (Score:3, Interesting)
So Microsoft has found that using lawyers and courts is a more effective way for them to combat malware and botnets than building good security into their products.
Why am I not surprised?
On a related matter, I am starting to see more reports of the possibility of malware in the Linux ecosystem. So far it is mostly a matter of an increase in security patches for Ubuntu and Debian apps, to fix vulnerabilities that no one has managed as yet to exploit to any significant degree. So its not really an issue, simply a minor annoyance that I've been saying okay to more automated updates in the last month or so than I was seeing this time last year.
Re:Using the law to fix technical shortcomings (Score:3, Interesting)