Posted on: 2008-02-18| Type: News Item
SpamRats Database now has over 4 million IP addresses listed in its worst offender database, representing mostly infected PC's, Trojans and Bots used to send out Spam, dictionary attacks, and brute force password attacks.
And these Trojans and Bots sources are responsible for 20% of the traffic detected at mail servers. These represent the worst sources of attackers and spammers detected by the Spam Rats detection tools.
LinuxMagic's flagship email server product 'MagicMail' with it's built in Anti-Spam technology, designed for the ISP and Telco's has been using IP reputation in it's servers to help block connections from Trojans and Bots, to reduce server loads and help in the fight against Spam. Because of the wide deployment of MagicMail servers throughout North America, MagicMail servers have been able to act as an early warning detection grid to detect new trojans, bots and other abusive sources. These 'worst offenders' are added to the public lists available at SpamRats within hours of detection, enabling not only MagicMail servers, but other email servers as well to block any mail connections from these locations. This detection technology has been showing significant results, and now that SpamRats has listed over 4 million IP Addresses in it's database, it is now already blocking 15-20% of inbound connections. And with the other IP Reputational tools, MagicMail is blocking more than 90% of all inbound mail attempts, BEFORE data acceptance. This 'zero day' approach also helps stop new Spam techniques before they are created.
And the tools use to detect Trojans and Bots are extremely effective, as shown by this detection chart.
With over 1 million IP addresses on RATS-NOPTR list alone, that mail servers never need accept a connection again, this has a huge impact on system resources from some of the worst types of attackers and spammers.
President/CEO Michael Peddemors was quoted as saying, "IP reputation is the most efficient form of protection, and our reputational databases and our data collection methods will place us a leader in our field by years end. There is only a finite number of IP addresses available, and there is no reason to allow the Trojan and Bot affected personal computers in the world to keep sending out Spam and attacking mail servers, once they are detected"
And if the 25% increase per month continues, then by years end, SpamRats will have detected over 50 million IP's, roughly the estimate of the amount of infected PC's worldwide. In 2007 the estimates or infected PC numbers ranged from 6 million to 20 million, but with the increasing use of home PC's in emerging foreign markets, this number is expected to increase.