The McColo Effect Continues to be Felt Five Months Later

The effects of the shutdown of the McColo Web-hosting company in November 2008 continue to ripple through the spam landscape. While spam levels have yet to reach the highs recorded before McColo was shut down, spam volumes are gradually creeping back up and are at approximately 91 percent of their pre-McColo shutdown levels.
 
A recent review of spam zombie activity shows that the EMEA region continues to be the leading source of all zombie IP addresses, hosting 45 percent of active zombie computers in March 2009. Brazil, however, at 14 percent owns the dubious honor of being the number one host country for active zombie machines. The distribution of top-level domains (TLDs) in spam URLs also continues to be interesting as the .cn TLD retains its “silver medal” position—34 percent of URLs contain this TLD. The United States (28%) and Brazil (9%) retain their positions as the predominant regions of spam origin. It is also notable that spam continues to respond to current events, with mortgage related, Conficker/Downadup related, and Tax Day related spam messages all featured in March 2009.
 
Click here to download the April State of Spam Report, which highlights these and other spam trends, including:

•     Spammers Rethink Their Mortgage Strategy

•     Conficker Used for Fake Antivirus Software Sale

•     Countdown to Tax Day Continues—Do Not File the “Spam Expense”

•     "Take care about yourself!" Avoid Terror-Related Malware Spam