Microsoft has been granted permission to deactivate 277 Internet domain names which it claims are associated with a worldwide botnet.

The company filed a suit with a federal court in Virginia on Monday this week requesting authorisation as it seeks to close down the giant botnet known as ‘Waledac’, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The botnet is said to consist of tens of thousands of malware-infected PCs that unlawfully access email addresses held on a computer before spreading spam and other malicious codes.

All of the .com domain names, which are said to be registered in China, will be temporarily disconnected by web address administrator VeriSign. Microsoft’s suit also identified 27 anonymous ‘John Doe’ defendants as being in violation of regional cybercrime legislation.

Last week, security software vendor NetWitness claimed to have discovered a separate botnet know as ‘Kneber’ consisting of approximately 74,000 infected machines. The company claimed that the botnet had compromised a number of major organisations, including Juniper Networks and Paramount Pictures, as well as several US government agencies.