CRTC serves first-ever anti-spam warrant in botnet takedown, Report

The CRTC has served its first-ever warrant, after the Canadian government’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) came into effect in July 2014, to take down a Toronto-based malware server.

The CRTC said the Toronto server acted as a command-and-control point for the Win32/Dorkbot malware, a family of related computer worms that spread through USB keys and instant messenging services and can steal usernames and passwords by watching your online activity.

The publicly funded agency worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Interpol and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the investigation.

The warrant was carried out with assistance from Mounties on Thursday.
In its announcement, the agency said it would not comment further on the investigation or name anyone involved in the investigation.

But in an email to Business In Vancouver, a CRTC spokeswoman said the warrant did not target any individuals associated with the server.

Instead, the warrant allowed investigators to retrieve information from the server to determine if it complied with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and “obtain the assistance of persons in charge at the place in the execution of the warrant.”

Agencies/Canadajournal