Berlin, March 14, 2012 – The Rustock botnet, which had been responsible for a
large percentage of global pharmaceutical spam and primarily controlled bots in
Western Europe and the USA, was shut down on March 16, 2011. As a result,
spam levels decreased by over 60% within 24 hours. One year later, the
Research Team at eleven, leading German e-mail security provider, analyzed the
consequences of the Rustock takedown and has summarized the most important
ramifications.
Spam, malware, and phishing occurrence
Spam levels in February 2012 were 61.2% below the value from February 2011,
thus putting them at approximately the same level as immediately after the
Rustock shutdown. Spam volumes temporarily increased in the fourth quarter of
2011, but then collapsed again just as quickly. By contrast, the number of
dangerous e-mails has increased significantly. Malware e-mails increased by
50.5% since February 2011 and virus outbreaks more than doubled (107.0%).
Phishing e-mails saw the largest jump, increasing by 145.0% between February
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