geekosystem

You cannot stop spam email; you can only hope to contain it. Frankly, even hoping for that is probably a little bit of wishful thinking. It's been just more than a month since the much ballyhooed takedown of the Grum botnet, a network of infected computers was estimated to be responsible for about one sixth all the cheap Viagra ads you have ever seen. (It's not just me getting those, right guys? Right?) So what affect has the takedown of one of the biggest spam delivery systems in the history of the web had on the amount of spam that actually hits your inbox? Absolutely none, it would seem.

The Grum botnet has been one of the most prominent distributors of spam for years, ranking third in terms of world spam volume. Yesterday, network security corporation FireEye reported that all of Grum's command and control servers (or CnC's) had been taken down after a weeks-long effort. Thanks to the work of a number of individuals who contributed to the takedown, we may see a significant decrease in the volume of the world's spam in the coming months.