The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit today announced it has successfully disrupted a rampant botnet in collaboration with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and leaders in the technology industry, including A10 Networks Inc. The Sirefef botnet, also known as ZeroAccess, is responsible for infecting more than 2 million computers, specifically targeting search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines, and is estimated to cost online advertisers $2.7 million each month._ Today’s action is expected to significantly disrupt the botnet’s operation, increasing the cost and risk for cybercriminals to continue doing business and preventing victims’ computers from committing fraudulent schemes. This is Microsoft’s first botnet action since the Nov. 14 unveiling of its new Cybercrime Center — a center of excellence for advancing the global fight against cybercrime — and marks the company’s eighth botnet operation in the past three years. Similar to Microsoft’s Citadel botnet case, the ZeroAccess case is part of an extensive cooperative effort with international law enforcement and industry partners to...

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