Internet Security and Programming

Security Fix has spilled quite a bit of digital ink chronicling the demise of Atrivo (a.k.a. “Intercage”), a now-defunct Northern Calif. based Internet service provider that served as home base for a large number of cyber criminal operations. Happily, data released this week about a short-lived but precipitous decline in the level of badness online after Atrivo was shut down illustrates just how bad Atrivo was. Internet security firm MessageLabs said it observed a significant drop in the level of spam and botnet activity (PDF) after Atrivo’s upstream Internet providers pulled the plug on the company last month. The graphic to the right shows a collapse in the level of spam emanating from computers infected with the some of the nastiest spam-enabling malware, including the Storm worm, Cutwail, Srizbi and MegaD. MessageLabs said the decline was due to the fact that a large number of command and control networks [...]

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