DOJ Seeks To Expand Use of Injunctions to Combat Botnets

The Department of Justice advocated for the passage of an amendment proposed by the Obama administration that would “add activities like the operation of a botnet to the list of offenses eligible for injunctive relief,” in a blog post Wednesday by DOJ Assistant Attorney General-Criminal Division Leslie Caldwell. Criminals use botnets to steal usernames, passwords and other personal and financial information, or to infect computers with criminal malware to hold computers and computer systems ransom, Caldwell said. The DOJ has used the civil injunction process to thwart these attacks successfully in the past, she said. “If we want security to keep pace with technological innovations by criminals, we need to ensure that we have a variety of effective tools to combat evolving cyber threats,” Caldwell said. Enacting the Obama administration’s proposed amendment, which would add to list of offenses eligible for injunctive relief activities that may not be technically considered fraud or illegal wiretapping -- such as stealing sensitive corporate information, harvesting email account addresses, hacking computers, or executing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks -- would “provide the government with an effective tool to shut down illegal botnets or certain widespread malicious software to better match the ways that criminals are using these technologies,” Caldwell said. Under the administration's proposed update to the criminal code, the legal safeguards that currently apply to civil injunctions such as civilly suing the defendant, the defendants' right to notice and ability to have a hearing before a permanent injunction is issued, and the defendants' ability to move to “quash or modify any injunctions,” would still apply, Caldwell said.