Microsoft: We've reduced overall Internet spam

Noticed fewer emails from broke Nigerian princes and companies hocking penis pills cluttering your inbox lately? Microsoft claims it's at least partially responsible for a decline in online spam since 2008. And the company says it's only getting warmed up.

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"The percentage of spam on the Internet has actually declined 15 percent from its peak in 2008, due to a number of factors including the legal and technical disruptive action Microsoft has helped drive in the prosecution of spammers and the takedowns of botnets used to send spam," wrote Dick Craddock, Microsoft Hotmail Group Program Manager, at the Windows Team blog this week.

Earlier this year, the software company worked in tandem with the FBI to terminate a powerful botnet called Rustock. Symantec analysts believed that the Rustock was the "dominant source of spam in the world" prior to its shutdown. Microsoft also had a hand in the FBI's takeover of the Coreflood botnet this past April, and in 2010 it defeated the Waledac botnet.

Craddock also touted Microsoft's progress cutting down on Hotmail-specific spam, admitting it was a "big problem" for the free e-mail service five years ago and brought the company a "deservedly bad reputation."

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"We've cut spam in Hotmail inboxes by 90 percent from its peak," he said. "And we’ve made it harder for spammers to use Hotmail to send spam - reducing 'outbound spam' from Hotmail by 75 percent." Craddock cited Microsoft's relatively new SmartScreen technology, introduced with Internet Explorer 8 and responsible for preventing billions of cyber attacks, as a major contributor to its anti-spam success.

One caveat, however, is that spammers are adapting and using the company's previously implemented "reputation" system against them.

"We've made it so hard on the spammers that they have now turned to a technique called 'reputation hijacking,'" Craddock explained. "This method involves illegally accessing an e-mail account with a good reputation and using it to send spam, as accounts with a poor rep are typically blocked from sending messages," he said.

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Microsoft outright banned the use of common names and phrases as Hotmail passwords in July in an effort to further limit hacking and spam. Craddock acknowledged even that drastic move won't be enough.

"We've made tremendous progress in our battle against spam, but we know that spam and hijacking will continue to be a big problem for all service providers as long as there is economic incentive for the bad guys to do what they do," he said. "We continue to invest in research and development to find ways to make it even harder for the spammers to get spam into your Inbox and to use Hotmail as a way of sending spam."

What do you think of Microsoft's efforts to combat spam? Let us know in the comment section.

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