Microsoft Settles With No-IP After Malware Takedown

Trailrunner7 (1100399) writes It's been a weird couple of weeks for Microsoft. On June 30 the company announced its latest malware takedown operation, which included a civil law suit against Vitalwerks, a small Nevada hosting provider, and the seizure of nearly two dozen domains the company owned. Now, 10 days later, Microsoft has not only returned all of the seized domains but also has reached a settlement with Vitalwerks that resolves the legal action. Some in the security research community criticized Microsoft harshly for what they saw as heavy handed tactics. Within a few days of the initial takedown and domain seizure Microsoft returned all of the domains to Vitalwerks, which does business as No-IP.com. On Wednesday, the software giant and the hosting provider released a joint statement saying that they had reached a settlement on the legal action. "Microsoft has reviewed the evidence provided by Vitalwerks and enters into the settlement confident that Vitalwerks was not knowingly involved with the subdomains used to support malware. Those spreading the malware abused Vitalwerks' services," the companies said in a joint statement. "Microsoft identified malware that had escaped Vitalwerks' detection. Upon notification and review of the evidence, Vitalwerks took immediate corrective action allowing Microsoft to identify victims of this malware. The parties have agreed to permanently disable Vitalwerks subdomains used to control the malware."

Complete clusterfuck

[ShaunC]

Microsoft identified malware that had escaped Vitalwerks' detection. Upon notification and review of the evidence, Vitalwerks took immediate corrective action allowing Microsoft to identify victims of this malware.

Yeah, if waking up one day to find that most of your business has been handed over to another company is what passes for "notification" these days.

I hope Microsoft paid them handsomely.

Re:There's at least one clear takeaway from this..

[whoever57]

It wasn't a load problem. The setup was just wrong (recursive resolvers used as authoritative servers didn't answer non-recursive queries correctly). It wouldn't have worked if Microsoft had given it all the CPU power and network capacity in the world. Garbage in, garbage out.

The takeaway is either:

1. No business should use Azure because Azure doesn't scale. OR:
2. No business should rely on Microsoft services, because Microsoft does not have the necessary competence.

This is only the latest in a line of screwups by Microsoft in their service offerings.