Earlier this month, BSA member Microsoft partnered with the FBI and law enforcement authorities in more than 80 countries to break up a huge cybercrime ring that had managed to steal an estimated $500 million from bank accounts in the United States, Europe and Hong Kong. The perpetrators carried out their crimes by infecting millions of PCs with a virus that effectively turned them into zombies and then conscripted them into the service of malicious computer networks known as Citadel botnets. All told, the Microsoft-FBI–led enforcement operation took down 1,400 of these botnets. (more…)