Spam bounces back from McColo bust

Google has reported that spammers are starting to recover

Google is reporting that data from its Postini subsidiary shows that annual spam levels are rising after a temporary fall following the shutdown of McColo.

Although overall spam levels are still down from the November figures just before McColo was shut down, the figures are somewhat misleading, since spam levels were much higher at the start of 2008.

"As seen from the rollercoaster ride of spam and viruses in 2008, spam has again demonstrated its resiliency," said Amanda Kleha from Google's Message Security Team.

"Despite eliminating a major source, spam keeps coming back. Spammers are reinvesting with increasing speed to evolve their systems into decentralised, harder-to-detect ecosystems."

While spam levels have yet to fully recover, levels have increased by 156 per cent since the McColo bust.

When Google looked at the cumulative number of spam messages blocked per user it found that the average user had 45,000 spam messages in 2008 (up from 36,000 in 2007).