Spam reduces following Pricewert shutdown, reports say

Cutwail's spam activities on Thursday as Pricewert got shut down.

(Credit: MessageLabs)

It's been almost week since the Federal Trade Commission had the allegedly rouge Pricewert ISP shutdown and it seems like the Internet has indeed been a safer, or I should say, a little less dangerous place.

The FTC charged that Pricewert's distribution of illegal, malicious, and harmful content and deployment of botnets that compromised thousands of computers caused substantial consumer injury and was an unfair practice, in violation of federal law.

According to Symantec, the Cutwail botnet, one of the most notorious botnets, accounting for up to 35 percent of all spam in May 2009 across the globe, experienced a major blow to its track record after the shut down late Thursday of Internet service provider Pricewert.

Cutwail is a major botnet network that, by itself, accounts for 35 percent of all spam in may 2009 across the globe. Cutwail was the biggest botnet in history at its peak, running at about 1 million nodes. It was responsible for 35 percent of all spam by the end of May 2009.

Another botnet that Pricewert allegedly involved with is the Pushdo, which was also reportedly affected. Both Pushdo and Cutwail reportedly used 3FN, one of the names that Pricewert did business under, as botnet control servers.

According to the data released Monday by TRACElabs, the overall spam volume index has reduced by 15 percent since last Thursday. However the day by day number has gradually increased.

This means a couple of things.

First, either this was coincident or Pricewert indeed involved in this nasty business. Note that currently the company has not been convicted of any wrong doings yet. The first court hearing is scheduled for June 15.

Second, it's likely that the spammers will soon recover from this heavy blow as many similar companies like Pricewert are based outside of the States, where the anti-spam laws are not strictly enforced.

Nonetheless this for now looks like an apparent victory for the authorities and for all the Internet users. In terms of its long term impact on spam, Symantect's MessageLabs Senior Anti-Spam Technologist Matt Sergeant told CNET News that "For now, we will see spam levels lower than usual, but we expected the swift comeback of Cutwail. The spammers learned that they can't put all their eggs in one basket and need to have backup command and control."

It's indeed a wait and see game but so far I personally have experienced less spam emails in the last few days. How about you? Share your thoughts about this case and your recent spam experience, in the comment area below.

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