Software giant Microsoft states that it has fixed an award of $250,000 for anyone who will give information about the controllers of Rustock and thus enable in arresting the botnet's perpetrators. Rustock, which was the greatest spam distributor during its most active period, has been recently taken down. The Register published this on July 18, 2011.
The announcement, made on July 18, 2011, follows four months since Microsoft conducted an innovative campaign for dismantling Rustock that assembled a total of 1m personal computers. Indeed since the dismantling, that number has reduced 50%, while Microsoft is already advertising through Russian newspapers for tracing the operators of Rustock.
What's more, Microsoft has filed a civil suit against those responsible for the botnet; however, it hasn't succeeded in finding them. The company, during June 2011, advertised within Russian newspapers informing Rustock controllers regarding the lawsuit. Currently, it's applying more initiative by pledging the hefty dollar sum to anybody helping in identifying the perpetrators.
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