Internet hosting site McColo disappeared on Tuesday, and with it went thousands of pieces of spam, thanks in part to investigative work by Washington Post reporter Brian Krebs.
For about four months, security experts have been collecting data about McColo Corp a California-based web-hosting service that may have been used by by the cyber underground, according to the The Washington Post. Krebs said the McColo hosting company had been responsible for up to 75 percent of all spam spent.
Security vendor MXLogic said it was seeing about a 50 percent decline in spam volume as a result on Wednesday.
Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks, a company that monitors botnet activity, speculated that McColo vanished at around 9am Eastern time on 10 November. Botnets are frequently used to relay spam, and McColo may have hosted some of the command and control servers necessary to co-ordinate spam campaigns.
Adam O'Donnell, writing on the ZDNet Zero Day blog, speculated that the spammers might regroup in Eastern Europe.
The Washington Post credits Benny Ng, director of marketing for Hurricane Electric, an upstream provider for McColo, for pulling the plug on the company. Another provider, Global Crossing, declined to comment, telling Krebs the company "communicates and co-operates fully with law enforcement, their peers, and security researchers to address malicious activity".
In September, another hosting site, Intercage/Ativo, was also shut down by its upstream providers.
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