Microsoft Malware Lab (Photo : Reuters)
Recent reports show that the notorious Ramnit botnet has been taken down finally in a joint effort headed by Europol's European Cybercrime Center (EC3) division.
The task force consists for leading IT experts from all across Europe along with tech giants Microsoft, AnubisNetwork and Symantec. According to the statement released today by EC3, the operation was successful and has shut the Ramnit's entire command and control infrastructure. Traffic in more than 300 domains used by the botnet is now redirected to domains under control of the authorities, according to Threat Post.
During its entire operation, the Ramnit botnet managed to infect more than 3.2 million computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. Ramnit was able to infect these computers by means of unauthorized software download, phishing schemes and massive spam campaign, The Register reported.
Once the unsuspecting victims fell to these schemes, Ramnit will integrate its malicious code into the computer system enabling it to access user's banking information as well as social networking passwords and usernames.
Additionally, once activated Ramnit have the capability to remotely disable the detection capability of some anti-virus software thus rendering it undetectable to the users.
EC3 head of operation Paul Gillen said that the team co-ordinated with police forces from Netherlands, Germany and Italy. He added that they were able to shut down a total of seven Ramnit command centers with one of the servers located in Gosport, Hampshire.
The recent crackdown against Ramnit botnet is just part of a long list of law enforcement intervention in order to eradicate botnet infestations. Private tech companies, especially Microsoft, has been very active in cooperating with this operations since its Windows operating system is one of the most badly hit platforms by botnets.
