[ISN] Spam drop could boost Trojan attacks

http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsID=107159

By John E. Dunn
Techworld
17 November 2008

The dramatic fall in spam traffic reported last week after alleged rogue 
ISP McColo was taken offline will only be a temporary reprieve and could 
actually generate a new wave of Trojans, experts have warned.

ISPs disagree on the global percentage drop caused by the shuttering of 
California-based McColo last Tuesday, with estimates given by those 
contacted by Techworld ranging from 50 to 80 percent, but even the lower 
figure is still an unprecedented fall in such a short space of time. It 
appears that even those who were aware of its use as a hosting port had 
not guessed that a single ISP could be behind such a huge chunk of the 
world's spam.

"Our servers haven't been so relaxed for months," said Richard Cox, CIO 
of respected spam-fighting organisation, Spamhaus, ruefully. "This 
proves how important it is for the law to get at this sort of 
criminality."

Nevertheless, Cox doubted that the improvement would last long, and 
could actually lead to a rise in Trojan attacks as spammers using McColo 
to host botnet control infrastructure, attempted to reconstitute their 
networks elsewhere in the coming weeks.

[...]


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