Spam Volumes Returning to Pre-McColo Levels?

Most readers will recall that in November of 2008, we saw spam levels suddenly fall worldwide, caused by the takedown of "bad guy" hosting service McColo. Spam volumes stayed at about 60% of their previous levels for several weeks until starting to slowly climb to a new plateau which seems to have held from about 12/3/08 until 1/10/09.

But all good things come to an end and it looks like spam may be back to pre-McColo levels.

The Proofpoint Attack Response Center reports today that spam volumes started rising again around the middle of this month and may have reached a new plateau that is approximately the same as the high levels just prior to the McColo shutdown.

Click the graphic for a closer look at the recent history of spam volumes. This chart shows the aggregate daily spam volume observed by some of Proofpoint's email "honeypots." It remains to be seen whether volumes will stay at this new level, continue to rise or fall once again...

As you can see from the chart, large scale changes in spam volume typically take several weeks to manifest themselves and sometimes, bursts are short-lived and return to a lower level.

With so much new virus activity about (see my previous post on Downadup) it's likely that new botnets are being created to replace those that were disrupted by the McColo shutdown.