It’s been over a month since the spam-spewing Grum botnet has been shut down, but spam experts say there hasn’t been a noticeable impact on global spam volume.
Security researchers from FireEye worked with Internet service providers in Russia, the Netherlands, and Panema to shut down the command-and-control servers controlling the Grum botnet.. The last server Ukraine was shut down July 18. Symantec researchers at the time estimated that Grum was responsible for one-third of all spam being sent worldwide, and its takedown led to an immediate drop in global spam email volumes by as much as 15 to 20 percent, according to July’s Symantec Intelligence Report.
However, the drop was only temporary, since in the days since, the global volumes have been creeping up, Eric Park, an Abuse Desk Analyst at Symantec, told SecurityWeek. In fact, if the present trend continues, August may wind up with a higher global spam volume than in July, Park said. According to Symantec’s July report, global spam volume was 67.6 percent (1 in 1.48 emails was flagged as spam), an 0.8 percent increase over June.
There’s been minimal to no change
in spam as a result of the Grum takedown, Park said — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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