Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline

[Sonic 296]

I found this story interesting. It would seem some server responsible for a crap load of spam has been taken down. I would often average 500 spam e-mails per day to my main @cncnz.com address (Mailwasher Pro wipes it all away), but now over the past 2-3 days I've seen way less, like a 100 per day.

 

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityf...ne_scams_a.html

 

Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline

 

A U.S. based Web hosting firm that security experts say was responsible for facilitating more than 75 percent of the junk e-mail blasted out each day globally has been knocked offline following reports from Security Fix on evidence gathered about suspicious activity emanating from the network.

 

For the past four months, Security Fix has been gathering data from the security industry about McColo Corp., a San Jose, Calif., based Web hosting service whose client list experts say includes some of the most disreputable cyber-criminal gangs in business today.

 

On Monday, Security Fix contacted the Internet providers that manage more than 90 percent of the company's connection to the larger Internet, sending them information about badness at McColo as documented by the security industry.

 

On Tuesday afternoon, I heard back from Global Crossing, one of McColo's major Internet providers. Their spokesman declined to discuss the matter, except to say that Global Crossing communicates and cooperates fully with law enforcement, their peers, and security researchers to address malicious activity.

 

Two hours later, I heard from Benny Ng, director of marketing for Hurricane Electric, the Fremont, Calif., company that was the other major Internet provider for McColo.

 

Hurricane Electric took a much stronger public stance: "We shut them down," Ng said.

 

"We looked into it a bit, saw the size and scope of the problem you were reporting and said 'Holy cow! Within the hour we had terminated all of our connections to them."

 

As of this writing, McColo's Web site is no longer available. In fact, I pinged no fewer than three different researchers who have tracked activity at McColo for many months: None could find a single Internet address assigned to the hosting provider that was still reachable.

 

Officials from McColo did not respond to multiple e-mails, phone calls and instant messages left at the contact points listed on the company's Web site before the site was taken offline.

 

There's more to come with details about this story later tonight or early tomorrow, but I wanted to get this post published before we got scooped on our own story.

Follow up stories.....

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityf...y_23_after.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityf...was_mccolo.html

[Saracen 16]

I check my CNCNZ.com e-mail account every 24 hours... Normally I'll have around 100-250 minimum every time. But in the last couple of days I have only been getting around 20-40.... it's great!

[Doctor Destiny 41]

My FS inbox has been cut back quite a bit, and so has my Windows Live mailbox.

[Luk3us 63]

All my junk is filtered anyway, so I don't notice junk mail anyway.

 

Unless of course I don't get something specific and have to go digging.

[BioBen 3]

Yeah I rarely ever get junk in my windows live mail.

[TheBlackOut 7]

Gmail always blocked the spam but I used to get like 110 spams a day now it's in the 20s.

[Mina Synd 0]

you lot (excluding those with the "company" e-mails like CNCNZ.com) must look at a lot of adult material... XD

though that said... for some reason before all this i got maybe... like... 5 spams a day... now i only get one or two o.o; i really hope they will do something about IM spam too :\ that hasn't been fixed. i keep getting AOL instant messenger spam of random account names saying like, "you've got a kiss! click here to claim it!" an stuff... that is really annoying >.<; i mean it's not a big deal, but when i actually receive the IM it lags me down for a few seconds and it always happens at the most inappropriate moments in a game >_>

but yah that should really help my mom out some o.o i mean she has way too many NORMAL e-mails a day that she wants to keep... but spam? lordie...

 

well y'know. may not affect me personally that much but it's a good leap forward...

[Louis EX 0]

I use gmail on s0rs and all my junk mail is filtered so I don't see any at all unless I want to.

[sith_wampa 6]

The Internets is a safer place now.

[BlyTwo 0]

Google Mail is the top rated email there is

(I use gmail too)

well you can expect it since google was started by a bunch of random nerds

Edited November 17, 2008 by BlyTwo

[Mina Synd 0]

the problem is now there is a gap in the market. which means either another spam centre will spring up and create an empire, replacing the last one, or lots more small ones will appear... either way it's a good start at clearing the internet from general hazards to people going online. might as well leave the torrenters alone cos there is no way they are going to be clamped down on anytime soon... but stopping things like spam, IM spam, various viruses and trojans (i'm assuming the latter would have to fall under the right of the firewall and anti-virus creators...) aaand say... those annoying adverts which seem to pop up more often. i can think of half a dozen examples:

 

the page hijacker - it opens up a "sponsor" website and at the top it says "click here to go to your site" or whatever

the msn login advert - a small graphic that appears on the bottom right of your webpage, looks like an msn buddy signed in, only it will be a picture of a random girl with a random phrase there...

random middle-of-the-page graphics - like you'll load up a page, you'll start looking and suddenly a few seconds after you've started scanning the page, you get this random advert pop up in the middle of the page which follows you wherever you scroll...

aaaand those annoying ones which expand when you accidentally brush your mouse over them. msn is fond of those lately. on the bottom of the buddy list... try to click a name near the bottom and OMI GOSHI DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE LATEST NIKE TRAINERS?

 

thankfully most of those adverts aren't real hastles, just minor nuissances... half of them disappear when you click a button on the graphic... but yah, advertising is getting way over the top. generally on a lot of webpages (normally naughty ones) you will get combinations of most, if not all of those advert types. i have seen all before and it is VERY frustrating. especially if you spend a couple of minutes killing all the advert spam only to discover that the site hasn't been updated that day yet so it was all for nothing >_>

so yah the things that -really- affect me right now are those annoying adverts. i spend a large amount of my web searching time closing those adverts >_>;;; even filefront has them (notably the page hijacker and the expanding adverts... aaaand every so often you get the middle of the screen one if you leave it for too long. normally like, a survey or a new game being advertised... go figure)