Why botnet takedowns can cause more harm than good

Zeus is a well-known and highly successful crimeware kit – the flat-pack furniture of the virus world. It is under constant development by several criminals or groups and new functionalities are constantly added.

The skill bar to using it is unfortunately very low and getting lower by the day.

The two-week deadline set for users to protect themselves is not the most effective method of tackling the Zeus cyberthreat, as cyber criminals can establish the botnet somewhere else and resume their work with minimum hassle.

Botnet takedowns can often cause more harm than good. Valuable information can be collected if they are allowed to operate under surveillance and in some cases, as with the Cryptolocker ransomware, a clumsy take-down can leave victims stranded and without access to data that is being “kept hostage”.

It is much better to identify command and control servers, follow the money trail to those who rented the hosting services and arrest them.

In order for UK citizens to protect themselves, a security solution which can detect and block new and previously-unknown variants of malware is a must. So is a bit of care – granting access to some kind of service that installs apps from unknown sources should always be a cause for concern.