Microsoft and federal agents shut down spam supplier 'Rustock'

Microsoft and Federal law enforcement agents, last week in a raid, shut down the largest Email spam supplier network in the world, ‘Rustock’.

Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit along with the US marshals raided seven hosting facilities in the country and seized the command and control machines which run the whole network.

These machines instruct the infected computers to send spam messages like phony lottery scams and fake and potentially dangerous prescription drugs.

This operation was called "Operation b107."

Richard Boscovich, senior attorney in the Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit wrote in his blog post, “This botnet is estimated to have approximately a million infected computers operating under its control and has been known to be capable of sending billions of spam mails every day.”

Microsoft Digital Crimes unit has worked very hard with the Law enforcers to bring down and get rid of spammers, botnets, and other malicious code creators.

According to Security giants Symantec, Rustock is responsible for 39 percent of the world’s spam. That means Shutting down Rustock will make a huge dent in spam all over the world.

In last November Dutch authorities took down a Trojan horse named Bredolad which dropped the spam level by 12% all over the world.

Rustock’s termination comes as a surprise for the cyber community, which work against the corral spammers. According to Journal Blog post, “spam monitors didn't know why the botnet's activity halted. It was clear at the time that the effort was coordinated and complete.”