Spamhaus eyeglasses the world - Microsoft's UK chief cyber Security Advisor compliments international e-security giant in spam battle plan.

Led by a team of 26 investigators and forensics specialists in 10 countries, Spamhaus International provides realtime anti-spam protection for internet networks and has collaborated with Law Enforcement Agencies to identify and pursue spammers worldwide. Spamhaus also works with Law Enforcement cyber-crimes teams in a number of countries, assisting investigations into phishing, botnets and malware operations and compiling evidence on illegal spam operations. Some of these teams include the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, and the Serious Organized Crime Agency.
As of June 23 2009, Spamhaus is currently monitoring and protecting over 1,452,190,300 mailboxes worldwide.

It is no wonder that large corporations such as Microsoft and many government agencies work with Spamhaus and the virtual assurance offered by Spamhaus in an effort to track down some of the worst spam gangs currently surfing through our online streets. Ed Gibson - Microsoft's UK Chief Cyber Security Advisor, and ex-career FBI Agent, recently shared his throughts with the Ark Group on Spamhaus' brief history and the role that the organisation has played in assisting assisting law enforcement, private industry and government agencies in the battle against the ‘spam underworld’.

"Founded in October 1998, Spamhaus started with the simple objective of identifying the many ‘spam factories’ which sent unrequested email to millions of unsuspecting victims.  The impact on spam operators - and criminal organizations - was and continues to be so effective that spammers are continually forced to change their way of ‘doing business’ through  such identity detection evasion methods as changing hosting facilities and geolocations every few minutes (generically referred to as “single flux” and “double flux” hosting), using false names, and free proxy and anonymizer services. Other operators turned to various illegal methods such as stealing credentials, or using social engineered emails loaded with malware that prey on a consumer’s innocence to open, thereby helping to create the now-ever present roBOT NETworks (or ‘Botnets’) which are used to blackmail and extort online businesses."

"Spamhaus tracks all these types of e-miscreant activity and keeps extensive records of the individuals and groups involved in the spam business. The organisation also makes the information it gathers available to
Law Enforcement Agencies that have cyber-investigations capability. And don’t underestimate how big a business it is! For example, Microsoft alone filters out as spam over 95% of the several billion emails per day that people send through  its Hotmail and Live services. This costs Microsoft and other e-mail providers an extraordinary amount of time and resources to help keep their customers spam free. Spamhaus also advises on shortcomings in the laws of various jurisdictions which if changed or adopted could have a serious impact
on the continued operations of cybercriminals.

"Spamhaus is a critical partner in this oftentimes dangerous and unrelenting fight against illegal spam operations.”

Ark Group Australia will be hosting a Public Sector Information Security conference that will feature an important half-day workshop facilitated by Richard Cox, Chief Information Officer of this leading anti-spam organisation. Spamhaus will reveal for the first time in Australia, how government organisations can combat external IT security threats and the way they can contribute and benefit from real-time anti spam intelligence across the globe.

The 'Public Sector Information Security' conference will be held at the Rydges World Square in Sydney on the 22-24 July 2009. For more information on Spamhaus' half day workshop click here, or contact Ark Group Australia on aga@arkgroupasia.com or call 1300 550 662