Feds to Remove 'Coreflood' Botnet from Infected PCs
After an unprecedented legal takedown of the massive "Coreflood" botnet earlier this month, federal authorities are now remotely removing the dangerous Trojan from corrupted PCs.
The Department of Justice will uninstall Coreflood from some of the more than 2 million computers identified to be harboring the malware, which has been used to steal sensitive corporate data and financial information for nearly a decade.
On April 13, the U.S. Attorney's Office filed civil complaints against 12 defendants thought to be using the botnet to commit wire and bank fraud, and issued a seizure warrant for 29 domain names attached to Coreflood's command-and-control network. The government also issued a restraining order to prevent Coreflood-infected systems from further transmitting data.
Users who wish to have authorities eradicate Coreflood from their computers must submit an authorization form to the FBI, Computer World reported. The DOJ's remote removal process will take place during the next four weeks.
There is a chance, however, that authorizing the government to step in on your behalf could do further harm to your computer.
The FBI has tested the uninstall command, but "it is nevertheless possible that the execution of the 'uninstall' command may produce unanticipated consequences, including damage to the infected computers," the FBI authorization form reads.
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