February 10, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — According to reports, several security vendors say anti-spam organization Spamhaus (spamhaus.org) is exaggerating the threat of a new spamming technique, which some analysts believe could lead to a surge in spam around the world.
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Earlier this month, Spamhaus warned that spammers have developed software that takes over computers and uses them to send spam through each particular machine’s Internet service provider. With spam appearing to come from ISPs, filtering technology would be unable to simply block domains from those ISPs since it would shut out a very significant amount of legitimate email.
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Email security provider Postini (postini.com) was critical of Spamhaus’s position. The company, according to reports, issued a statement criticizing Spamhaus of “badly overreacting” to the news that spammers are relaying email over ISP email gateways.
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Steve Linford, director of Spamhaus, has reportedly insisted the hype was warranted and warned that buying anti-spam products was not enough to combat the problem.
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Linford said that AOL recently reported an increase in spam believed to be caused by the new technique. According to reports, several US-based service providers have acknowledged that the new method poses a problem and may have caused a recent mild increase in spam. However, they also say the situation is not yet catastrophic.
