Global SPAM Volume Dropped Drastically Wednesday!
Shockingly, I’ve noticed a definite drop in spam today. Surprisingly Teksquisite’s Outlook junk folder does not hold one spam message. Of course I am delighted - almost every morning there is a minimum of at least a dozen new spam messages in the Tek junk folder. My personal Gmail account was also down in volume today and only contained 23 spam messages which is about 1/4 of the spam that it normally holds. I’m impressed!
Allegedly, McColo.com, a Silicone Valley spam source was taken down on Tuesday. MSNBC reports that immediately after McColo was unplugged that security companies charted a precipitous drop in spam volumes worldwide.
“The servers are operated by McColo Corp., experts say has emerged as a major U.S. hosting service for international firms and syndicates that are involved in everything from the remote management of millions of compromised computers to the sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and designer goods, fake security products and child pornography via email.”
Sophos states that the company is alleged to have been hosting command-and-control (C&C) mechanisms for a number of large botnets, perhaps including Rustock, Srizbi, Dedler, Storm, Mega-D and Pushdo. When considered together these botnets are estimated to contain over 600,000 infected home computers capable of sending more than 100 billion spam emails per day, according to Wikipedia’s entry on botnets.
You can read the complete Sophos article here.
World expert on botnets, Gadi Evron, during his Pause For Reflection post on the linuxbox botnets list in October stated, “Cyber crime is a war waged against the Western world. At first, no one even noticed and it was a niche.. an art. While the artists still exist, they are a minority, the hackers. For the criminals however, motive is as irrelevant as nationality. Whatever actions are taken, be it a political defacement, fraud or spam, the unavoidable secondary impact remains the same: damage to the Western economy and security in an exponential growth which will become ever clearer in the coming years.”
“Who is next on the target list? I have dual citizenship. Along with my homeland citizenship, I am of the Internet, and see it as my personal duty to try and make the Internet safe.”
Stay Tuned!





