Microsoft Launches Cybercrime Center to Fight Malware, Piracy
Microsoft is consolidating its digital crimes and Internet piracy units into one command center.
Dow Jones Business News reports that Microsoft is merging its digital crimes and Internet piracy units into one advanced Cybercrime Center located on its Redmond, Washington campus. This will allow Microsoft to centralize all investigations relating to government and law enforcement agencies.
According to a report, a staff of 30 will reside at the new operations center, and work with 70 other Microsoft investigators spread across the globe. Together they will focus on malicious software crime, technology-related child exploitation and piracy.
A recent IDC study commissioned by Microsoft reports that pirated software and malware are arriving together on PCs distributed in rapidly growing emerging markets. This is creating an even larger pool of victims for preying criminal groups, thus pushing Microsoft into regrouping and doubling its efforts in reducing both.
The study reports that 45-percent of the pirated software that does not come pre-installed on a computer is acquired from the Internet. 78-percent of that download group stems from websites or peer-to-peer networks and includes some type of spyware. 36-percent of the download group even contains malware and adware, the study revealed.
David Finn, associate general counsel in the Microsoft Cybercrime Center, said that some of the reported malware records the victim's every keystroke. Others will secretly switch on the user's camera and microphone, giving cybercriminals "eyes and ears" in company meetings and living rooms.
The report goes on to reveal that 45-percent of the survey respondents who installed pirated software suffered system slowdowns and had to uninstall the software. 34-percent said the software wouldn't run at all, and 30-percent said their PC was overrun by pop-ups. 25-percent were infected with a virus, 24-percent saw their home network slow to a crawl, and 17-percent claimed they were forced to reformat their hard drive. Out of all the consumer respondents, 23-percent said they didn’t have any problems.
"Malicious code and non-genuine code go hand-in-hand, it's as simple as that," said David Finn, associate general counsel for Microsoft and head of its Cybercrime Center.
Microsoft claims that its Cybercrime Center provides "hi-tech investigative resources and access to intelligence on infected PCs and associated malware that product and service teams can use to combat account and platform compromise and service abuses, including denial of service attacks, ad fraud, and botnet creation."
Experts from across Microsoft’s product groups can work side by side with each other, the Digital Crimes Unit, and industry partners to develop and execute cybercrime disruption strategies, the company said.
The recent Microsoft-sanctioned 29-page report by IDC can be read in PDF format here.
This means that:
1: ALL the software on websites and p2p networks include "some type of spyware"
OR
2: Keygens and/or cracks are considered spyware
OR
3: My understanding of logic (and/or grammar) differs from theirs
This means that:
1: ALL the software on websites and p2p networks include "some type of spyware"
OR
2: Keygens and/or cracks are considered spyware
OR
3: My understanding of logic (and/or grammar) differs from theirs
This is what happens when uninformed people download from the first link they see on Google. It's their own fault for not doing their research.
Microsoft, and many other software companies are considering their average user much more stupid than before. That is anoying
But its so true,worst part is people buy these machines from stores that look legitimate.
Don't matter what AV you have this rootkit will not show up when you do a scan and nether will the banking trojan which it is hiding unless you scan from a boot cd or slave into a system with a running AV.
Microsoft will never call you at home this is a scam to steal info from your computer i wonder is microsoft knows about these guys.
Also formatting your computer does NOT get rid of some rootkits/bootkits it has to be zero'ed by either a boot cd or slaved into a computer with a running up to date AV and wiped including the boot sectors.
The main cause of these infections are security holes in internet explorer and java i have seen people with up to date av's still get infected with zero day malware that disables the av but it still looks like it is running.
Also these people that were infected by ad's on poplar websites such as MSN,Google,Facebook,yahoo and lots of other sites which you think would be safe.
Only true way to surf safe is to un-install java and stop using internet explorer better yet run linux in a virtual machine set to secure mode or boot from a live cd.
Knowledge is power people. lol.. (always wanted to say that)
I didn't know America was considered an emerging market, but HP / Gateway / Dell / E-Machiens sure load up the malware/spyware...
Are you really that ignorant?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57568067-83/microsoft-symantec-shutter-another-botnet/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/microsoft-botnet-takedown/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2011/09/22/microsoft-gives-rustock-botnet-evidence-to-the-fbi.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/07/02/microsoft-names-defendants-in-zeus-botnets-case-provides-new-evidence-to-fbi.aspx
The only problem is 1 down 2 000 000 000 to go, it's just like war against drugs: a big waste of money.
Wake up and smell the coffee man. But don't get me wrong, I wish malware would go away.
Its Techs like you especially when they're in charge which complicates the process for the rest of the techs and can mean the difference between losing their jobs over this. Do you know how the file system works?. I have never came across of where you format and the virus is still there. I have heard of MBR viruses sure. Just wipe the MBR and your good to go. By formatting the drive it erases the toc (table of contents) rendering data useless until recovered. It is the rule of any file system. Possible causes for a tech to think that are either A did not really formatted the drive or their terms of "formatting" is reinstalling a new OS on top of the old without an actual format, giving the impression of "this virus can handle a format". I have seen many techs make this mistake many many times over and even debate their mistakes to others. Well at least that explains why i get computers that supposedly other techs claim to fix, or B..Techs don't truly understand how formatting works.
Heard that saying "Backup before you format" because trust me once you format there is no such thing as undo. Data is still there but its useless and its at risk of being overwritten and you be surprise how quickly the old data gets overwritten. I know this from experience when i accidentally formatted my backup drive. I was able to recover almost all my data but, unfortunately not without some data loss. You can however undo a partition that you accidentally deleted because deleting a partition only changes the mbr and not the file system in that partition.
Go figure.