Terry Hanushek
05-21-2006, 06:28 PM
Vicious counterattack delivers fatal blow to anti-spam firm
By Brian Krebs
Washington Post
Eran Reshef had an idea in the battle against spam e-mail that seemed to have been working: He fought spam with spam. Wednesday, he gave up the fight.
Reshef's Silicon Valley company, Blue Security Inc., simply asked the spammers to stop sending junk e-mail to his clients. But because those sort of requests tend to be ignored, Blue Security took them to a new level: it bombarded the spammers with requests from all 522,000 of its customers at the same time.
Then, earlier this month, a Russia-based spammer counterattacked, Reshef said. Using tens of thousands of hijacked computers, the spammer flooded Blue Security with so much Internet traffic that it blocked legitimate visitors from going to its Web site, and to others as well.
The spammer also sent another message: Cease operations or Blue Security customers will soon find themselves targeted with virus-filled attacks.
Reshef waved a virtual white flag and surrendered. The company and its Web site shut down Wednesday morning.
The entire article is at:
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/14628748.htm
Terry
By Brian Krebs
Washington Post
Eran Reshef had an idea in the battle against spam e-mail that seemed to have been working: He fought spam with spam. Wednesday, he gave up the fight.
Reshef's Silicon Valley company, Blue Security Inc., simply asked the spammers to stop sending junk e-mail to his clients. But because those sort of requests tend to be ignored, Blue Security took them to a new level: it bombarded the spammers with requests from all 522,000 of its customers at the same time.
Then, earlier this month, a Russia-based spammer counterattacked, Reshef said. Using tens of thousands of hijacked computers, the spammer flooded Blue Security with so much Internet traffic that it blocked legitimate visitors from going to its Web site, and to others as well.
The spammer also sent another message: Cease operations or Blue Security customers will soon find themselves targeted with virus-filled attacks.
Reshef waved a virtual white flag and surrendered. The company and its Web site shut down Wednesday morning.
The entire article is at:
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/14628748.htm
Terry