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More Spam for the Holidays

Paul Lilly — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:28:55 -0600

With proper filters in place, you may not even have noticed that spam levels have dropped off recently. It isn't that the scumbags sending out the unsolicited emails have gotten into the holiday spirit and decided to take a break from their operations, and instead the drop off was a result of the FTC shutting down McColo Corp., the web hosting service believed to be responsible for 75 percent of the world's spam.

The two-week hiatus appears to be over. According to Symantec's MessageLabs, spam emails are increasing at twice the volume after McColo went offline. Following the FTC bust, MessageLabs says that spam levels dropped precipitously by 80 percent. But now the remaining 20 percent has increased to 37 percent, indicating that the botnet owners have found new ISPs for their operations.

"The Asporx and Rustock botnets are back with a vengeance after having found new command and control," MessageLabs' Matt Sergeant said.

It looks like fruitcakes won't be the only unwanted gifts this holiday season.

Facebook Wins $873 Million Case Against Spammer

Paul Lilly — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:55:53 -0600

As it's turning out, the fight against spam might not be so futile after all. Edward Davidson, who became known as the 'spam king' by sending out millions of falsely labeled emails, found himself behind bars in April, and then more recently, the FTC shut down one of the largest organized spam rings in the world in HerbalKing. And less than two weeks ago, the FTC scored another major win by shutting down a web host thought to be responsible for 75 percent of the world's spam. Now it's Facebook who's getting in on the fight.

Ruling on a case filed by Facebook against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital on August 14, 2008, Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel has awarded Facebook over $873 million in damages. Atlantis Blue Capital found itself under legal fire for allegedly accessing Facebook's servers, setting up phishing websites to acquire Facebook logins and email addresses, and sending out millions of emails to the social networking site's members.

"It's unlikely that Geurbez and Atlantis Blue Capital could ever honor the judgment rendered against them (though we will certainly collect everything we can)," Max Kely, Facebook's director of security, wrote in a blog post. "But we are confident that this award represents a powerful deterrent to anyone and everyone who would seek to abuse Facebook and its users."

The sentence, which is likely to knock Atlantis Blue Capital out of business, also forbids Geurbuez to access, retain, or use Facebook data in any way, nor is he allowed to create or maintain a Facebook profile.

Web Host Responsible for 75% of World's Spam Goes Offline

Paul Lilly — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:00:21 -0600

We'd be remiss to claim that the tide is turning in the war against spam, but that doesn't stop us from getting excited at seeing the scumbags responsible suffer setbacks. Such was the case last month when the FTC said it had shut down one of the largest global spam networks allegedly responsible for sending billions of unsolicited emails. Now, less than one month later, a web hosting firm believed to be responsible for hosting roughly 75 percent of the world's spam has gone offline.

With servers housed in a 30-story office tower in downtown San Jose, California, hosting service McColo Corp. was shut down when two internet providers, Global Crossing and Hurricane Electric, cut off service after receiving reports about McColo's activities. Following the termination of service, security companies noticed an immediate drop in spam volumes, with email security firm IronPort claiming spam levels fell by about 66 percent for the 24 hour period ending Tuesday. Unfortunately, the drop isn't expected to last.

"We're seeing a slow recovery," said Nilesh Bhandari, product manager with IronPort. "We fully expect this to recover completely, and to go into the highest ever spam period during the upcoming holiday season."

Drats.

Male Enhancement Spam Ring Dysfunctional after FTC Bust

Paul Lilly — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:58:19 -0500

We're not so naive to think that male enhancement, weight-loss, and prescription medication solicitations will stop infiltrating our inbox and filling up our spam queue, but perhaps after the Federal Trade Commission's latest bust they'll be a little less frequent. The FTC said on Tuesday it had shut down one of the largest global spam networks allegedly responsible for sending billions of unsolicited emails.

The FTC received some 3 million complaints in connection with spam tied to the HerbalKing operation, which is said to have operated in the United States, China, New Zealand, and other nations. According to the FTC, HerbalKing received $400,000 in Visa credit car charges in a single month, leading a U.S. District Court to freeze the various defendants' assets.

As is typical of spam rings, HerbalKing utilized botnets to mass-mail recipients. Mega-D, believed to be the group's largest botnet, was responsible for 35,000 zombie PCs capable of sending out a whopping 10 billion email solicitations per day. But the list of infractions goes well beyond violating the Can-Spam Act of 2003. The FTC accuses HerbalKing of unlawful operation of a pharmacy, making false claims regarding the safety of herbal products containing potentially harmful ingredients, selling medication without proof of a prescription, and more.

Don't Be a Dummy, Stop Buying Junk From the Spam Pimp

Chris Moody — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:03:53 -0500

CRN recently reported on a research from internet security vendor Marshal that found out of the 622 users polled 29.1% admitted to having purchased items through spam emails.

I seriously hope this was just a particularly ignorant group of Internet users. Okay, now hear this; Buying stock through spam email amounts to lighting a match to your hard-earned cash. There is no magic pill to make your penis bigger or make you better in bed. Buying crap through spam encourages spammers to spam more. In other words, don’t do it! Those of us with a clue will thank you, if we don’t cuff you first.

Read on to see how email is broken!

Its Not Good To Be The Spam King

Chris Moody — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:44:08 -0500

Unlike other kings, spam king Edward "Eddie" Davidson decided that he didn’t like his new royal domain at the minimum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado. After serving five weeks of his 21 month sentence his Royal ‘Spamness’ hopped a ride with his wife when she came to visit.

"He jumped in the car with his wife," said Will Cochenour with Lakewood police. "When they were leaving, he forced her in the car, brought them home and left after a change in clothing.” Davidson was last seen Sunday afternoon in his wife's 2006 silver Toyota Sequoia.

Davidson's Power Promoters spamming network promoted junk between 2002 and 2005, gumming up inboxes everywhere.

The U.S. Marshals are leading the search, with help from FBI, IRS and the Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force. This time however they are sure not to take him back to Club Fed, but somewhere with a bit more security, and you can bet he’ll be in for a longer stretch of time too. This is providing that one of his spammed subjects doesn’t run into him first and tar and feather him. While this would make it a great disguise, it is sure to remove hair coming off (ouch).

If you are out looking for the spam king, be sure to imagine him without his royal accoutrements as pictured below.

McAfee States the Obvious About Spam

Chris Moody — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:53:12 -0500

In May 2008, McAfee set up 50 individuals from around the world with new laptops and email addresses and then had them surf for 30 days trolling for spam to discover “how much spam they would attract and what the effects would be, both short lived and long term”.

Every techie reading this is thinking the same thing, Well DUH, they got a crap load of spam and were really @%!#& annoyed by it. Really McAfee’s S.P.A.M. (Spammed Persistently All Month) Experiment amounts to pseudo news or a marketing campaign. That is not to say that it did not generate some useful data, but most of its conclusions are a no brainer.

Jump through to see what conclusions McAfee came to!

Daily News Brief: Intel Announces Atom Processor Line

Paul Lilly — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:02:07 -0600

Intel's Atom boasts sub-1W power consumption, SPAM conviction upheld, Return to Dark Castle demo released, and much more!