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Microsoft says it, and several tech companies, have at least temporarily taken down the Trickbot botnet, a Russian-based network of devices that has infected more than a million computers since 2016 and is behind scores of ransomware attacks.
“We disrupted Trickbot through a [U.S.] court order we obtained as well as technical action we executed in partnership with telecommunications providers around the world,” Microsoft said in a statement Monday. “We have now cut off key infrastructure so those operating Trickbot will no longer be able to initiate new infections or activate ransomware already dropped into computer systems.”
Other tech companies involved in the effort included?ESET,?Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs,?NTT?and?Symantec. Also involved was the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC).
Microsoft says these moves represent a legal approach that its Digital Crimes Unit is using for the first time to get the court order: Copyright claims against Trickbot’s malicious use of its software code. “This approach is an important development in our efforts to stop the spread of malware, allowing us to take civil action to protect customers in the large number of countries around the world that have these laws in place.”