Great Spam Botnet Suddenly Disappeared From Radar

A spam botnet that was last year for a large portion of all spam messages containing malware responsible suddenly disappeared and never returned. It involves ASPROX botnet since 2008 became operational. Over the years there appeared many variations of the malware, which spread mainly through infected e-mail attachments. 80% of all e-mail malware was sent via the botnet.

For example, last year emails with voicemails, send confirmations of courier companies, airline tickets and coupons used to allow users to open the attachment piggybacked. Once the attachment is opened the computer is part of the botnet. At peak times knew the botnet 2 million sessions per week. The end of 2014 the botnet suddenly disappeared from the radar.However, a clear reason missing.

For example, there are no operations of investigative services took place and there are no indications that the botnet operators were arrested. Earlier this year discovered the Internet Storm Center all that the botnet was gone. Security company Palo Alto Networks confirms that the botnet was shut down in January. One possible reason is that the trustees have decided to regroup the botnet and re-deploy. Although the botnet is gone, there are still ASPROX infected "computers" that continue to send e-mails with malware.