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Trace Q1-2009 report
- http://www.marshal.c...hesection=trace
April 1, 2009
"...Spam
...by the end of March 2009 the SVI (Spam Volume Index) had reached its pre-McColo level. Even so, taking a longer term view, spam volume still remains less than mid-2008. We believe successive events, including the interruption of the Atrivo/Intercage network in September, the FTC crackdown of the ‘Affking’ gang in October, the McColo shutdown in November and the subsequent demise of the Srizbi botnet, and disruption to the Bobax botnet in late 2008, have all contributed to make life more difficult for spammers...
Botnets
... a handful of botnets continue to dominate the distribution of spam. At the end of March 2009, the familiar botnets Mega-D and Rustock and Pushdo continued to dominate spam production. Xarvester is the new kid on the block, and shares quite a few similarities to its likely predecessor, Srizbi. Add a second tier of botnets, namely Donbot, Grum and Gheg, and collectively, this motley group accounts for over 70% of spam...
Malicious Spam Campaigns
... The Waledac botnet, the probable successor to Storm, has been active with a range of campaigns including President Obama, Valentines, fake coupons and bomb blast news stories. The Pushdo botnet, too, continues to pump out various malicious spam and phishing email, including fake facebook.com and classmates.com campaigns...
Malicious Web Campaigns... (Rogue AV, etc.)
The last few months has seen the resurgence of the fake anti-virus purveyors, which have been part of the scene in one form or another for the best part of 12 months. Most recently, search engine optimization, using hot Google search terms*, is being used to drive users to websites where they are prompted to download, install, and pay for this dubious ‘anti-virus’ software...."
* http://www.marshal.c...asp?article=884
