Microsoft battles battle against Necurs botnet of 9 million systems – Computer – News

Microsoft has taken over the management of the American infrastructure from the Necurs botnet and prevented the botnet from expanding into new domains worldwide. It would be one of the world’s largest spam sending botnets.

Microsoft received permission from a New York court on March 5 to take over the management of American domains that Necurs used. When analyzing the botnet, Microsoft analyzed the algorithms that Necurs used to automatically generate new domains. This enabled the company to warn registrars in different countries in advance and to prevent domain registration. Microsoft said they could predict that the botnet would register more than six million domain names in twenty-five months.

With that, Microsoft says Necurs has inflicted a major blow. It is suspected that the botnet is managed from Russia and used to rent to criminals. From the discovery in 2012, researchers have already seen that criminals extend the functionality with modules. It would be the largest botnet for sending spam messages. Microsoft cites as an example that Necurs sent 3.8 million spam messages to 40.6 million systems in the 58 days of the investigation.

The botnet is also associated with the spread of malware, ransomware and fraud attempts around shares and dating. In addition, the botnet had the ability to perform DDOS attacks, but it was not yet activated. Microsoft worked with providers, registrars and government organizations from Mexico, Colombia, Taiwan, India, Japan, France, Spain, Poland and Romania, among others. In 2016, the botnet was already temporarily less active after the arrest of fifty hackers in Russia.

–