The outfit has sued and won a court order to allow it to take control of 99 web domains owned and operated by a group of Iranian hackers variously called APT35, Phosphorus, Charming Kitten, and the Ajax Security Team.

The domains had been used as part of spear-phishing campaigns aimed at users in the US and across the world.

APT35 hackers had registered these domains to incorporate the names of well-known brands, such as Microsoft, Yahoo, and others. The domains collected login credentials forusers the group had tricked into accessing their sites.

Some of the domains Microsoft has confiscated include the likes of outlook-verify.net, yahoo-verify.net, verification-live.com, and myaccount-services.net.

Microsoft said it received substantial support from the domain registrars, which transferred the domains over to Microsoft as soon as the company obtained a court order.