As iTWire reported on 28 January, when McColo, which was hosting the servers that controlled several major botnets was disconnected from the internet, the Marshal8e6 Spam Volume Index reported that spam literally dropped by over 50% overnight as these botnets became effectively disabled. Spam volumes in mid-November were at the lowest levels seen since mid-2007.

However, in today’s announcement, MessageLabs. says the spammers are well and truly on the rise again and there’s been a grim warning – this could be the year when spam levels go through the roof.

"With botnets now responsible for as much as 80 percent of all spam, the likelihood is that the increase in spam volumes in the last few days can be attributed to a new wave of activity from Mega-D and Xarvester," said Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Analyst, Symantec.

"Significantly, this marks a return to spam levels back as they were before the McColo shutdown. As the botnet community becomes even more crowded, 2009 could be the year when spam levels reach an all-time high."

MessageLabs maintains that botnets are “responsible for this sudden blizzard of spam,” and now with the resources to send as much as 100 billion spam emails per day worldwide and the skills to keep reinventing themselves when damaged, “bots are the weapon of choice for today's cyber criminals and 2009 has already seen a host of new botnet faces.

Rhetorically, “who will we be the Storm or Srizbi of 2009? “, poses MessageLabs.
And, its answer! “Cutwail has already become the largest of all botnets. Careful in its execution so as not to arouse suspicion, Cutwail is very good at retaining its size of more than a million bots. Although new to the scene, Donbot is already the second largest in size behind Cutwail.

“But size isn't everything,” chimes MessageLabs, “Mega-D, although almost half the size of Cutwail, is currently responsible for significantly more spam than any other botnet and has recently stepped it up a notch – will this continue?

“Or will Xarvester give Mega-D a run for the title of most active botnet? And can it reach the same levels as its older brother Srizbi? Believed to be from the same group, Xarvester is still relatively small but it's a fast growing botnet that packs a mighty punch! “ 

And, “Rustock is not to be forgotten,” adds MessageLabs, while “Gheg and Grum are also new botnets on the block. “

In case you’re wondering, which is the botnet that will wreak the most havoc in 2009? 
 Ah! MessageLabs is not giving that one away – at least not for free – and says if you want to “understand more about the weapons which aid the cybercrime industry” you’ll have to contact them to arrange an interview with one of their intelligence analysts.     

What MessageLabs does reveal, however, is that the worth of all this cybercrime is in excess of US$100 million per year!

That’s a hell of a lot of dodgy emails!