thank you. >> chairman whitehouse, ranking member graham and members of the committee, i'm richard boscovich, assistant general counsel. thank you for the opportunity to discuss microsoft's approach to fighting and detecting botnets. we also thank you for your leadership in focusing attention to this complicated and important topic. botnets are groups of computers remotely controlled by hackers without knowledge or consent of the owners, enabling criminals to steal information and identity, disrupt networks and distribute software and spam. i'll describe how microsoft fights botnets, disrupting the tools and carefully designs these operations to protect consumers. to understand the devastating impact of botnets, we can look at how they affect one victim. consider in use power. a chef in the united kingdom found a warning she could not access the files unless she paid a ransom within 72 hours. when she failed to meet the deadline, all of her photos, financial accounting information and other data were permanently deleted. all this was caused by a botnet. she later told the reporter, if someon

thank you. >> chairman whitehouse, ranking member graham and members of the committee, i'm richard boscovich, assistant general council. thank you for the opportunity to discuss microsoft's approach to fighting and detecting bot nets. we also thank you for your leadership in focusing attention to this complicated and important topic. botnets are groups of computers remotely by hackers without knowledge or consent enabling criminals to steal information and identity, disrupt networks and distribute software and spam. i'll describe how microsoft fights botnets, disrupting the tools and tle carefully designs these operations to protect consumers. to understand the devastating impact of botnets, we can look at how they affect one victim. consider in use power. a chef in the united ding come do found a warning she could not access the files unless she paid a ransom within 72 hours. all of her photos, financial accounting information and other data were permanently deleted. all this was caused by a botnet. she later told the reporter, if someone had robbed my house, it would have been easier. inde

our first witness will be richard boscovich which is the assistant attorney general counsel on microsofts digital crimes unit. a position where he developed the legal strategies used in the take downs and disruptions of several bot nets including the citadel, zeus and zeus bot net. he directed the district's computer hacking and intellectual property unit. well, we will hear next from the vice president of global affairs and cyber security policy at semantec corporation which is our leading cyber security providers in this country she's responsible for their global strategy including privacy. before she joined them in 2010 she was the director for critical infrastructure cyber security in microsofts trust worthing computing group and before that she served in numerous positions in the department of home land security including the deputy director of the national cyber security division and the uscert j we will hear from dr. paul vixy who is the chief executive officer of a commercial internet security company. he previously served as the chief technology officer for above net; an internet