For long suffering internet users
this is a little light at the end of the tunnel. The close cooperation between Microsoft and
the US
No one objects to legitimate advertising
or even targeted advertising if only because sometimes you want to be the
target. The spammer’s only clients are
obviously criminal fronts for all sorts of doubtful product and free intrusive advertising
is their only way of penetrating the market.
Besides, I am getting tired of hitting the delete button every day to
dispose of another Viagra offer or Nigerian fraudster.
Of course the worst are
transmitting out of country and we have to try harder with them.
The only reason I control comment
access on this blog is to block multiple spam attempts which do appear at times
and they never quit in their efforts to bypass defenses.
World's biggest source of spam email shut down
The world's most prolific source of spam emails has been shut down in a
series of coordinated raids by Microsoft and US federal authorities.
Three Spanish men with 'limited' hacking experience are believed to be
behind the vast Mariposa botnet Photo: CLARE KENDALL
By Christopher Williams, Technology Correspondent 6:20PM GMT 18
Mar 2011
The Rustock botnet, an international network of virus-infected
computers, had for years generated billions of emails per day, promoting
unlicensed online pharmacies and cut-price impotence pills.
But on Wednesday, security firms noticed email traffic from Rustock
completely collapsed. It has now been revealed that Microsoft, backed by US
Marshals acting on a court order, seized servers that it's estimated covertly
controlled almost a million Windows PCs.
“We think this has been 100 per cent effective," said Richard
Boscovich, senior attorney in Microsoft's digital crimes unit, according to the
Wall Street Journal.
The servers were rented from commercial internet hosting firms across
the Mid West, who were apparently unaware of their role in Rustock. These
"command and control" servers would issue instructions to infected
home and business PCs worldwide.
The criminals behind the spamming business were named in Microsoft’s
lawsuit only as “John Does 1-11”. To get the court order, which empowered it to
seize equipment and so "decapitate" the botnet, Microsoft alleged the
John Does infringed its trademarks in some of their emails.
The scale of the shut down is unprecedented. A report last month by
SecureWorks, a computer security firm, said Rustock was the world's biggest
source of spam.
“The reasons for this are due to the author’s relentless development of
stealth tactics,” it said, referring to how Rustock was frequently updated to
stay one step ahead of anti-virus packages.
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