Botnet fighter Shadowserver in major financial difficulties
The Shadowserver Foundation, a non-profit foundation registered in the Netherlands and the United States that works to combat botnets and cybercrime, is in serious financial difficulties now that Cisco has withdrawn as a sponsor. The foundation collects large amounts of information about botnets, malware and other criminal networks and shares it with providers and government services, such as Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs). In recent years, the Shadowserver Foundation has played an important role in the roll-up of several large botnets. At the end of February, Cisco announced that it was discontinuing as the largest financial sponsor. As a result, the Shadowserver Foundation immediately lost four of the seven donated staff and the other three employees will stop on May 26. Shadowserver also has to move the entire American data center infrastructure to a new location before May 26. Therefore, without immediate help, Shadowserver will have to stop offering the most important services, including free network reports with information about infected systems.