Monthly Archive for April, 2009
Spam levels have finally bounced back to levels seen prior to the shutdown of notorious Web hosting provider McColo in November of last year, at least from the vantage point of Postini, Google's e-mail security provider. Postini said its measure of the seven-day average spam volume didn't return to pre-McColo measurements until March 23. "What we have seen in Q1 is a slow but steady return to before-McColo" spam levels, said Adam Swidler, Postini's product marketing manager. Still, just as some anti-spam hardware and software vendors saw anywhere from a 50 percent to 75 percent drop in spam after McColo was shuttered, depending on their view, I should note that some e-mail security providers cited a resumption of pre-McColo spam levels as early as December. As far as spam trends in first quarter 2009, the spammers appear to be dusting off tried-and-true infection and distribution methods, Postini reports. Virus-laden e-mail
Editor's Note: The following was written in the spirit of April Fool's Day. Brian is following the story and if there are real reports of outbreak, he'll report them in a separate post. Reports are trickling in about the impact from the Conficker worm, as infected systems passed zero hour at midnight and began downloading additional malicious components. Here's a quick roundup of some of the more notable incidents caused by Conficker so far, according to published reports: - A nuclear missile installation near Elmendorf Air force Base outside of Anchorage, Alaska briefly went on a full-scale military alert after technicians manning the bunker suspected that several of their control systems were infected with Conficker. According to wire reports, the remote facility temporarily moved to Defense Condition (Defcon) 3 in the pre-dawn hours, but quickly backed down from that posture. An airman at the installation who asked not to be
