Spammers not affected by arrests

Bangalore: Even after series of arrest, net access cutoffs and by infiltrating command systems, spamming is still seen as a lucrative job for cyber criminals. There are four such networks which have been blocked completely but this has not inconvenienced hi-tech criminals who found other routes to send spam, say experts, according to BBC.

In early March, many parts of the command and control (C&C) system for the Zeus botnet were knocked out of action as Cisco and others cut off the Kazakhstani ISP being used to administer it. Similar action was taken against Lethic, Waledac and Marioposa botnets in early 2010. "So as far as impact on spam goes it has been minimal," said Rik Ferguson, a Senior Security Analyst at Trend Micro.

Botnet controllers have shown resilience in recovering swiftly after a shutdown. 2008 saw the close down of an ISP called McColo which provided net connections for many botnets. As a result of that, global spam levels dropped by 70 percent but it did not take long for junk mail levels to start climbing again.