Experts take down Grum spam botnet, world's third largest

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57475328-83/experts-take-down-grum-spam-botnet-worlds-third-largest/

By Steven Musil
Security & Privacy
CNET News
July 18, 2012

Computer-security experts took down the world's third-largest botnet, 
which they say was responsible for 18 percent of the world's spam.

Command-and-control servers in Panama and the Netherlands pumping out up 
to 18 billion spam messages a day for the Grum botnet were taken down 
Tuesday, but the botnet's architects set up new servers in Russia later 
in the day, according to a New York Times report. California-based 
security firm FireEye and U.K.-based spam-tracking service SpamHaus 
traced the spam back to servers in Russia and worked with local ISPs to 
shut down the servers, which ran networks of infected machines called 
botnets.

The tech community has stepped up its efforts of late to take these 
botnets offline. Microsoft in particular has been quite active, using 
court orders to seize command-and-control servers and cripple the 
operations of the Waledac, Rustock, and Kelihos botnets.

The takedown of the Rustock botnet cut the volume of spam across the 
world by one-third, Symantec reported in March 2011. At its peak, 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.

[...]


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