Microsoft and US federal authorities eradicate Rustock botnet

Microsoft made a statement Thursday that it took down one of the biggest producers of spam e-mail in association and partnership with US federal authorities.

The Redmond company said that its legal action against orchestrators of the Rustock botnet resulted in raids across the country on Thursday which effectively shut the network down.

It was noticed earlier on Thursday that the volume of spam email coming from the Rustock network declined sharply. According to some estimates Rustock was responsible for almost half of the spam appearing in inboxes. However, they warned that total eradication requires long-term efforts.

A federal court in Seattle where Microsoft filed its lawsuit issued a permission for actions and Microsoft worked with U.S. Marshals Service to raid hosting providers in seven U.S. cities early on Thursday, including Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle and Columbus.

Microsoft thinks there may be a million computers infected with Rustock malware, sending out as many as 30 billion spam e-mails per day, without their users' knowledge.

Microsoft said it was now working with Internet service providers and response teams around the world to help users get the Rustock malware off their computers.