Spam plummets as gang leaves net (via the BBC)

November 13th, 2008 by Steven Marra

An important note: There is a constant ebb and flow in the world of Spam and Phishing. When one side in the battle scores a victory, the other marshals its forces for another attack. This is just the latest in (what will continue to be) a long struggle to keep inboxes free from Spam and Phishing attempts.

Since the following story was published, Spam at WVU dropped from 15 million instances on Wednesday (11/12/08) to 4 million on Thursday (11/13/08).

The closure of a web hosting firm that is believed to have had spam gangs as clients has led to a drastic reduction in junk mail.

Two US internet service providers have pulled the plug on the firm McColo following an investigation by the Washington Post newspaper.

Anti-spam firm Ironport has seen junk mail levels drop by 70% since McColo was taken offline on 11 November.

But, it warned, it will be a temporary respite from the menace of spam.

Read the rest of the story


2 Responses

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I think that this story may be overstating the impact the disruption of this “gang” has had on the amount of spam. We certainly haven’t seen a reduction. I think we (WVU) blocked something like 140 MILLION spam messages last month.

1    Sarah Barnes November 13, 2008 11:17 am

McColo went offline just two days ago =P

Maybe, in December, we could look back at the spam tallies for the 1st half of November versus the 2nd half?

2    Steven Marra November 13, 2008 11:26 am

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