Software giant, Microsoft has said that investigators in two states in the US confiscated cyber crime "command" servers as part of a campaign to uproot web-based criminals.

The company utilized laws created to fight organized crime groups for obtaining court orders for seizing servers in Pennsylvania and Illinois. The servers were allegedly used for controlling computers corrupted by malicious code.

The servers controlled computers that were infected by viruses and then used these computers to send Spam and virus to other systems around the world. Viruses were used for stealing online bank account and password information of Internet users from around the world.

The worldwide, illegal computer networks made of millions of infected computers is referred to as Zeus botnets because of the kind of virus used to infect the systems. Zeus malware records keystrokes typed on computers and also notes patterns for stealing bank information.

Microsoft digital crimes unit senior attorney Richard Boscovich wrote in a blog post that, "A number of the most harmful botnets using the Zeus family of malware worldwide have been disrupted in an unprecedented, proactive cross-industry operation against this cybercriminal organization."