Orphaned Bots Facing Internet Blackout

Assisting the FBI in the DNSChanger takedown was the Estonian Police and Border Guard, the Dutch National Police, NASA's Office of the Inspector General and in the private sector, Georgia Tech University, the Internet Systems Consortium, Mandiant, Spamhaus, Team Cymru, Trend Micro, the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The private-sector firms also make up part of the DNS Changer Working Group.

[ Security professionals are leery of one-way public-private partnerships, but Operation Ghost Click shows that the model is necessary to take on international threats. See Teaming Up To Take Down Threats. ]

The botnet was used for a click-fraud scheme, which netted the gang behind it more than $14 million. The group allegedly used it to create phony advertising clicks to businesses that paid affiliate fees. Operation Ghost Click resulted in the arrests of six Estonian nationals -- a Russian suspect remains at large.

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