Spam mysteriously decreased last week

SoftScan reports worldwide spam levels dropped off over the past week. They suspect a major botnet went out of service, resulting in a major drop in spam.

Spam levels continued to rise in December, but crashed by 30 percent in the first week of January, SoftScan said on Tuesday. The company has seen nothing similar in the past, but believes the most likely explanation is that a botnet - a network of compromised machines - has temporarily lost control of its client systems.

The results are based on SoftScan's analysis of the email systems it scans for about half a million users, mostly international businesses, according to chief technology officer Diego d'Ambra.

"This is very unusual. For years spam has just been steadily going up and up, and now all of a sudden, levels are similar to where they were in the first half of 2006," he told Techworld.

He said a major botnet was almost certainly the cause of the fluctuation, since botnets are now the single biggest factor in spam generation.

The drop may also be the result of the earthquake in Asia but that's a lot less likely because the drop-off wasn't instantaneous.

I agree with what SoftScan reports. I get hundreds of spam mails everyday and since last week I do notice I'm getting a lot less spam.