Security News > 2020 > March > Necurs zombie botnet disrupted by Microsoft

Some consider Necurs to be the largest botnet ever, with estimates from 2017 indicating that, at the time, it consisted of more than 6,000,000 infected computers.

In its blog post, Microsoft said that, along with partners, it's been spending the past eight years tracking and planning to knock the knees off Necurs.

Necurs has been a powerful force of yuck: Microsoft says that during one 58-day period, its staff watched as one Necurs-infected computer sent a total of 3.8 million spam emails to over 40.6 million potential victims.

Microsoft says it's been heading up activities that will keep the crooks behind Necurs from registering new domains to execute attacks in the future - a feat that was accomplished by analyzing how Necurs systematically generates new domains through an algorithm.

Microsoft reported these domains to their respective registries in countries around the world so the websites can be blocked and thus prevented from becoming part of the Necurs infrastructure.

News URL

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/03/12/necurs-zombie-botnet-disrupted-by-microsoft/