Its malware scanner cleaned more then 500k PCs infected with the bot in "07
Microsoft today took credit for crushing the Storm botnet, saying that the malware search-and-destroy tool it distributes to Windows users disinfected so many bots that the hackers threw in the towel.
"They realized they were in our gun sights," said Jimmy Kuo, a principal architect with Microsoft"s malware protection center, the group responsible for the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). Microsoft updates and automatically redistributes the software tool to Windows users each month on Patch Tuesday.
Last year, said Kuo, the criminals behind the Storm Trojan -- malware designed to compromise PCs and add them to a botnet, or collection of infected machines -- tried to keep pace with Microsoft and the MSRT. "They were anticipating our monthly release [of MSRT]," said Kuo, "with new versions that were ready to go immediately before our release."