Dutch police uses controversial tactic to tackle botnet

Dutch police uses controversial tactic to tackle botnet

2010-10-28 09:03:04 GMT+7 (ICT)

LONDON (BNO NEWS) -- The Dutch National High Tech Crime Team used a controversial, unusual tactic to tackle a controversial botnet that infected over 30 million computers, ZDNet UK reported on Wednesday.

The Dutch police uploaded their own program to the millions of infected computers to let them know that their personal computers were infected, a tactic that seemed to violate computer crime laws.

The program redirected a web browser to a special website of the Dutch police where users are informed their computer is infected with Bredolab, a password-stealing malicious software program.

"Technically, what the Dutch police did could be considered to breaking the law in some countries, by making unauthorized changes to another user's computer," said Graham Cluley, a senior consultant at security firm Sophos.

Authorities were able to warn the approximately 30 million users by taking command of 143 Web servers used to control computers infected with Bredolab. The servers belong to LeaseWeb, one of the top hosting providers in Europe.

"For us, it's the first time we've seen something of this magnitude. It's also the first time the police are trying to actively warn people that their computer is infected,†said Alex de Joode, LeaseWeb's security officer.

On Monday night, Dutch authorities arrested a 27-year-old Armenian man considered to be the mastermind behind the Bredolab botnet. The man was detained at the Zvartnots International Airport in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

Botnets are a significant problem as they are designed to prevent authorities from easily tracing perpetrators as well as causing mass distribution of spam and malicious software across the Internet.

However, the action by the Dutch Police may represent a breach of the Computer Misuse Act. Most countries have laws that forbid unauthorized modification of a computer. In the U.K., the regulation is part of the Computer Misuse Act of 1990.

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