3FN shutdown tied to drop in spam from Pushdo botnet

Security vendors are reporting a drop in spam since a federal court ordered the shutdown of alleged rogue ISP Pricewert, also known as 3FN. The Federal Trade Commission said the company hosted command-and-control servers for a number of spam-producing botnets.

One security vendor said the shutdown of 3FN has coincided with a 15 percent drop in all spam, mainly from the Pushdo botnet. Another botnet, Mega-D, has fallen off since the shutdown was ordered on June 4th, although the biggest botnet - Rustock - was unaffected.

Botnets, collections of compromised computers, can be controlled remotely by hackers known as bot herders to send out spam, including phishing attacks and viruses in email attachments.