Botnet Closures Don’t Stop Spam Emails
The take down of the Rustock botnet command centers earlier this year had little impact on spam emails when compared to last year's Pushdo/Cutwail and Bredolab closures. The quantity of spam fell by 2% on the heels of Rustock's demise, only to rebound shortly thereafter. This could be due to the closure of SpamIt, a large pharma partner program.
The fact that Rustock specialized in pharma spam means it may well have ceased sending out mass mailings well before the the take down occurred. Given the recent interest in botnets by law enforcement agencies, the cybercriminals that operated Rustock may have chosen to back off and lie low for a while until the attention faded. The amount of spam detected in mail traffic in the first quarter of 2011 was just under 80%, which was a slight increase when compared with the previous quarter but still less then the figure for the previous year.
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