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Microsoft has said that spam emails were reduced by a colossal amount following the removal of the Cutwail and Rustock botnets.
According to the latest Security Intelligence Report from the software vendor, the volume of spam had reached a global high of 89.2 billion messages in July 2010 prior to the dismantling of the botnets, which resulted in a low of 21.9 billion in May 2011.
“The magnitude of this decrease suggests that coordinated takedown efforts such as the ones directed at Cutwail and Rustock can have a positive effect on improving the health of the email ecosystem,” noted the report.
Despite the vast volumes of spam out there, the report states that around 85 to 95 per cent of the emails are intercepted at a network level, with the remaining percentage having to go through email filters.
