The Miracle of Rustock's Silence

The wonder

On 16 March 2011, mid-morning, the world's spam suddenly dropped. In Operation b107 Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, with Pfizer, FireEye, the University of Washington and US Marshals, had seized Rustock's command servers under a civil court order. Rustock, a botnet of over a million PCs, had been responsible for a huge share of global junk mail, including offers of counterfeit drugs.

The miracle worker

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, with Pfizer, FireEye, University of Washington researchers and the US Marshals, who walked into the data centres in person to carry the servers away.

Thanksgiving

For inboxes gone quiet and for those who pulled the plug on the spam servers, we give thanks. Amen.

Technical record

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, with Pfizer, FireEye, the University of Washington and US Marshals, seized Rustock's command servers under a civil court order. Rustock, a botnet of over a million PCs, had been responsible for a large share of the world's spam, and global spam volume dropped noticeably overnight.