Rustock takes spambot gold with Olympic surge

by Davey Winder

Friday, 08 August 2008

Page 1 of 2 ! When it comes to endurance races, the Srizbi spambot takes some beating as far as distributing the most malicious spam across the planet is concerned. Thanks to an Olympic surge from new kid on the bot race blocks, Rustock, has sprinted past the old man of spam to take a dubious gold... Experts from the Marshal TRACE Team  keep a very close eye on what is happening in the murky world of the spambot. They keep score of the amount of spam distributed by the bots, and Srizbi is the king of the heap. Or rather, was. Having seen off all contenders for the bastard spammers from hell title since rising to prominence in February 2008, Srizbi peaked late May with some 55 percent of all spam by volume. But that was then, this is now. Following an unprecedented wave of malicious spam distribution, much of it relying upon faked CNN headlines covering prominent events such as the Beijing Olympics, Rustock has pushed Srizbi aside. As reported here at iTWire the Rustock spambot started the real push to the top with a concerted effort in June. With the help of Paris Hilton, George Bush, Spongebob and some mind-boggling message headlines involving them, it managed to grab 21.5 percent of world spam by volume. The figures we quoted then were bad enough: "the two year old Rustock comprises of at least 150,000 infected PCs, distributing 30 billion spam messages daily." But things have got worse, according to the TRACE Team which reports that in this last week alone Rustock has risen to a 31.1 percent share. For the first time, that is more than Srizbi which seems to be declining in popularity under pressure from the Rustock blitz with 'just' a 30.7 percent share of the market. Neither, it has to be said, anywhere near the twisted glory days of that earlier 55 percent share that Srizbi enjoyed, not something that can be said of its victims, in May. Worryingly, the TRACE Team advise us that during this last week the amount of malicious spam, the stuff that is intended to harvest computers for botnet use, has risen from 3 percent to a record level of 32.3 percent. "Almost one third of all spam in circulation last week was malicious," said Phil Hay, Lead Threat Analyst for Marshal's TRACE Team. "Rustock is largely responsible for that. The rise in malicious spam and the rise of Rustock are directly linked." Does this signal a change in strategy for Rustock? You betcha! No more go low and go slow for these guys. And Internet Explorer users need to worry the most. Find out why on page 2... CONTINUES << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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