Symantec has reportedly disabled 5, 00,000 computers out of the 1.9 million strong Zero Access botnet, which were used for cybercrimes.
The company’s security operations manager Orla Cox said that they have taken almost a quarter of the botnet offline which were used for advertising and currency frauds, the BBC reports.
According to the report, the ZeroAccess network is used to generate illegal cash through a type of advertising deception known as ‘click fraud’, in which the computers are commanded to download online adverts and generate fake clicks on the ads to mimic legitimate users and generate payouts from advertisers.
Cox said that despite the quarter of infected systems being taken down, the updated ZeroAccess Trojan botnet will be more difficult to take down.
A researcher for Spamhaus, Vincent Hanna said that every time a botnet is taken down and people behind it aren’t arrested, there is a chance they can rebuild the botnet.
Hanna further said that the remaining resilient part of the network may continue to be used for fraud, and could start spreading the upgraded ZeroAccess Trojan, the report added. (ANI)