Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Global Stage: The AI Divide WATCH RECORDING
popular

What does it take to fight ransomware and botnets?

Ransomware is a type of malware that holds computer systems or data hostage with demands for payment. And it has been used against a wide variety of targets, including governments, businesses and health care facilities. Ransomware distributors are also part of a wider web of digital menace that has threatened election security.

In October 2020, the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit worked with a coalition of partners to disrupt Trickbot, one of the most infamous botnets and prolific distributors of ransomware. While disrupting a botnet is challenging work and success varies over time, Microsoft and its partners were able to disrupt 94% of Trickbot's critical operational infrastructure in six days. Visit Microsoft on the Issues to read about the Digital Crimes Unit and how they work to disrupt cybercrime.

More For You

​A foreign tanker carrying Iraqi fuel oil damaged after catching fire in Iraq's territorial waters, following unidentified attacks that targeted two foreign tankers, according to Iraqi port officials, near Basra, Iraq, March 12, 2026.

A foreign tanker carrying Iraqi fuel oil damaged after catching fire in Iraq's territorial waters, following unidentified attacks that targeted two foreign tankers, according to Iraqi port officials, near Basra, Iraq, March 12, 2026.

REUTERS/Mohammed Aty
Four weeks into a war nobody planned to still be fighting, President Donald Trump issued Iran an ultimatum: reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours or watch your power grid get obliterated. Iran said no and threatened to retaliate against desalination plants and other civilian infrastructure in Gulf countries. Trump must have found this [...]
​Liberia-flagged Aframax tanker Suvorovsky Prospect discharges fuel oil from Russia at the Matanzas terminal, in Matanzas, Cuba, on July 16, 2022.

Liberia-flagged Aframax tanker Suvorovsky Prospect discharges fuel oil from Russia at the Matanzas terminal, in Matanzas, Cuba, on July 16, 2022.

REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
What is Vladimir Putin thinking? It’s certainly not the first time we’ve asked the question: for 25 years, the wily ex-spy has shown a penchant for testing geopolitical limits, wrongfooting his opponents, and craftily antagonizing his adversaries. The latest episode is taking place on the high seas, where a tanker laden with some 730,000 barrels [...]
Rahm Emanuel: Trump doesn’t know “friend from foe” on Russia
- YouTube
Rahm Emanuel says the arrival of Russian oil tankers in Cuba is a direct test of whether President Trump can distinguish between political theater and a real strategic threat. [...]
You vs. the News collage
Think you know what's going on around the world? Here's your chance to prove it. [...]