Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Neutralizes Nitol Botnet

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) figured out a few weeks ago that some of its brand-new, right-off-the assembly-line computers were being infected with malware that originated from China – from where most of those assembled PCs originated – as Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) works with some hardware manufacturers in China. To the company’s credit, it aggressively hunted down the source of what is called the Nitol botnet and had filed  a lawsuit seeking an injunction against a domain name and its owner.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that it had reached a settlement with Chinese businessman Peng Yong regarding his domain 3322.org, which Microsoft claimed was the source for the Nitol botnet and as many as 500 types of malware. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Virginia seeking consent to intercept the Nitol botnet and a temporary restraining order against Peng, his domain and businesses and other unnamed individuals.

As part of the settlement, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) said that Peng would cooperate with Microsoft and the Chinese Computer Emergency Response Team to go through the process to block all connections to malware originating from 3322.org and to prevent any future infections. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that in nearly 17 days of collecting data on the malicious domain, it had blocked more than 500 million connections from more than 7.5 million unique IP addresses.

What do you think of this work by Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)? If you are an investor in Microsoft stock – like billionaire fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital – how do you feel about what the company is doing about this threat to Windows?