Thai Computer

Germany will soon launch a service to help consumers remove malicious software from their computers in an attempt to stem the spread of spam-sending botnets

The German Anti-Botnet Initiative, which has a budget of €2 million (US$2.7 million), is being funded by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Technical support will come from the Federal Office for Information Security, known as BSI, and additional help from the Association of the German Internet Industry (Eco).

The initiative will launch on Sept. 15 at the 8th annual German Anti-spam Conference in Wiesbaden.

“The main goal is to remove Germany from the top 10 ranking of countries from which botnet activities originate,”

Botnets are networks of infected computers that can be used by hackers to send spam, conduct distributed denial-of-service attacks and steal data. The networks have proven to be very robust, employing advanced technical means to keep them active despite attempts to shut them down.