Security experts identified Northern California's McColo Corp. as one of the world's leading purveyors of fake drugs, phony designer goods, fake security products and child pornography. The company's Internet service providers cut off McColo's online access yesterday, and the online world saw an instant result.
Online security firm IronPort sent out an alert this morning with details about the global decline in spam, which dropped by about two-thirds, but as enticing as it sounds to receive so much less spam, online experts don't see this as a permanent solution.
"The spammers will just move on to another hosting provider and come right back," said Brandon "Fight The Patent," an online guru and adult industry expert.
Other experts agreed. Last September, authorities shut down a spam firm called Intercage, aka Atrivo, and it only took the spammers a few days to find a new ISP that would deliver their millions of bad messages. Tech expert Brian Krebs of the Washington Post predicted a similar trajectory for McColo.
"It seems likely that the same will happen in this case as well, and that this minor victory will be short but sweet," he said.