Tired of Playing Cyber Cop, Microsoft Looks For Partners In Crime Fighting 113
chicksdaddy writes: When it comes to fighting cybercrime, few companies can claim to have done as much as Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, which spent the last five years as the Internet's Dirty Harry: using its size, legal muscle and wealth to single-handedly take down cyber criminal networks from Citadel, to Zeus to the recent seizure of servers belonging to the (shady) managed DNS provider NO-IP. The company's aggressive posture towards cyber crime outfits and the companies that enable them has earned it praise, but also criticism. That was the case last week after legitimate customers of NO-IP alleged that Microsoft's unilateral action had disrupted their business. There's evidence that those criticisms are hitting home – and that Microsoft may be growing weary of its role as judge, jury and executioner of online scams. Microsoft Senior Program Manager Holly Stewart gave a sober assessment of the software industry's fight against cyber criminal groups and other malicious actors. Speaking to a gathering of cyber security experts and investigators at the 26th annual FIRST Conference in Boston, she said that the company has doubts about the long term effectiveness of its botnet and malware takedowns.
Re:It's Microsoft's fault (Score:1, Interesting)
If the operating system is secure, criminals exploit the users instead. And if Microsoft had built a secure operating system in 2001 instead of spending the decade of the 2000s patching their vulnerabilities, there would have been fewer viruses and worms and more phishing and social engineering, exactly like the situation is now. Go back to the 1990s and take your irrational hatred of Microsoft with you, troll.
Re:It's Microsoft's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
If the operating system is secure, criminals exploit the users instead.
Nonsense. There is not a fixed quota of crime in the world. Criminals exploit profitable opportunities, and more opportunities mean more crime, while fewer opportunities mean less crime. A secure operating system does not "push" people into phishing. Writing a virus and social engineering don't even use the same skill sets.
So they're gonna crack down (Score:3, Interesting)
all the holes in Windows and commercial software that allow so many criminals to profit from the security holes?