Wednesday, Nov 26, 2008    Text size: 

“We’d really like to see Microsoft do something,” Richard Cox told XBIZ. “We had a meeting with Microsoft a few years ago when they had a different manager. The new manager couldn’t fix the problem.

“All internet users rely on ISPs to fix the problems when their networks get abused,” Cox said. “And all networks get abused.”

This week the organization issued its regularly posted list of 10 individuals and companies that it labels ‘high priority’ for law enforcement agencies to track worldwide.

Topping the list is HerbalKing, an Indian national who runs a “massive affilitiate spam program for snakeoil body part enhancement scams,” according to the Spamhaus Project. HerbalKing uses botnets, bulletproof hosting offshore and fast flux hosting.

The rest of the list is comprised of three Russians, two Ukrainians and one person apiece from Hong Kong and Australia. To view the list, click here. About 200 known professional spam gangs generate some 80 percent of spam in North America and Europe, according to the nonprofit.

The Spamhaus Project tracks their names, aliases and operations on its Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database. The organization is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and London, with a staff of 26 investigators and forensic specialists in 10 countries, according to its website.

Spamhaus lists the top 10 spammers as a service to law enforcement agencies worldwide in their pursuit of the individuals and companies they consider cyber criminals.