The Internet is a little less jammed with spam after a cybercrime group blew the whistle on one of the biggest offenders. HostExploit, an alliance of volunteers who work at Google, McAfee and Arbor Networks, has been tracking and documenting cybercrime activity and its latest effort slashed worldwide spam by 50 percent and junk e-mail by 75 percent.
The alliance this week released its Cyber Crime USA report pointing to McColo, a San Jose, Calif.-based Web hosting service, as one of the biggest spam offenders. The company used servers which depend on U.S. transit peers, according to HostExploit, and beyond spam, McColo was also sending malware and hosting child-pornography sites.
HostExploit tracks cybercrime using several measurements, according to spokesperson Jart Armin. “We came up with the world’s biggest spam botnets were hosted by McColo,” Armin said in a phone interview. “Of course, what we came up with was 24 botnet links and lots of malware and loads of Trojan horses.”
Stealing with Fake Software
The group found that 40,000 visitors per day were lured to fake Web sites and paying for antivirus software that didn’t exist. While downloading this fake software, the sites would steal information from computers, including credit-card numbers and other identifying information.
“We also found 40 child-pornography Web sites and payment systems for those,” Armin said. “It’s a lot of work to put this together and expose it.” But it was worth it when McColo’s Web site was shut down by its two Internet service providers, Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing, Armin added.
This isn’t the first time HostExploit has come to the rescue. In its first report, the group focused on Activo/Interchange, which resulted in a 10 percent drop in spam and malware worldwide.
The group said it’s the members’ duty as Internet security specialists to be responsible and blow the whistle…