Microsoft taps Azure cloud to fight botnets

BANGALORE, INDIA: Microsoft is tapping its Azure cloud resources to share information on botnet malware infections with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in near real time.

Its new Windows Azure-based Cyber Threat Intelligence Program (C-TIP) will allow these organizations to be aware of cyber threats, and in turn notify people of potential security issues with their computers, the company said in a Blogpost.

Microsoft's Orlando Ayala joined with the Secretary of State of Telecommunications and Information Society of Spain, Victo Calvo Sotelo, to announce an agreement for the Spanish CERT, INTECO, to become one of the first organizations to receive data from the C-TIP cloud service.

The Spanish CERT joins the Luxembourg CERTs, CIRCL and govCERT, as an early adopter of this program, which allows ISPs and CERTs to receive updated threat data related to infected computers in their specific country or network approximately every 30 seconds.

All the information is uploaded directly to each organization's private cloud through Windows Azure. Participation in this system allows these organizations almost instant access to threat data generated from previous as well as future MARS operations, it adds.

This is an evolution from the original Cyber Threat Intelligence Program that Microsoft developed three years ago. Currently, 44 organizations in 38 countries receive these threat intelligence emails.