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Report: Spam down 33 percent after Rustock takedown

The successful takedown of the Rustock botnet cut the volume of spam across the world by one-third, according to Symantec's March 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Report.

By the end of last year, the notorious botnet was responsible for sending out 44 billion spam messages per day, or more than 47 percent of the world's total output, making it the leading purveyor of spam. Though Rustock lost some steam this year, it still managed to send out more than 13 billion daily spam e-mails earlier this month prior to its takedown, said Symantec.

But legal actions by Microsoft and raids … Read more

New gang war raging on the Internet

It's like something out of The Sopranos. Antivirus researchers at Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs have identified criminal gangs engaged in a turf battle online. The primary groups are responsible for the Warezov and Zhelatin worms; these worms then download Trojans that are in turn responsible for a majority of the spam and malware circulating on the Web. Basically, new spam and new phishing attacks are designed to switch your remotely controlled PC from belonging to the Warezov gang or the Zhelatin gang. The resulting botnets--collections of remotely controlled PCs--have proved profitable, luring unsuspecting Internet users to purchase porn or other … Read more