Verizon may have allowed spammers to put spamming methods on cruise control until now with new spam blocking measures being put into place.
The major internet service providers of the United States are all plagued with spam challenges and now Verizon.net will be one to implement new spam blocking measures. The anti-spam organization, Spamhaus.org, stated through its analyses that Verizon.net was home to twice as many spam sending sources as any other major Internet service provider in the US. Verizon now says they plan on putting measures in place to prevent it from being home to so many spammers.
Spamhaus.org compiles a "composite block list" (CBL) which is a gathering of intelligence data relayed by large spam traps and e-mail infrastructures around the world. The list includes internet addresses that have been observed as ones that send spam and conduct malicious activity possibly spreading viruses and malware among other malicious actions. From the image below (source: spamhaus.org and washingtonpost.com) it shows the number of IP's on the Spamhaus.org's CBL. As you can see Verizon falls in the first place which opens up a great opportunity for spammers to utilize vast resources to conduct malicious activities.
Not only is Verizon attractive to spammers and online attackers but we believe it is due to certain facts such as allowing customers to send email on Port 25 which is a known method for sending spam or junk messages after infecting a computer with malware or bots that are designed to convert the host system into a zombie or controlled system.
One of the measures that Verizon will take is addressing the Port 25 issue among implementing other authentication actions. Customers who may be effected by the new change or measure will be contacted in advance of the change while giving them the technical assistance as needed.
Do you think more ISP's (Internet Service Providers) should start cracking down on spammers by implementing new security measures such as in the case of Verizon? Would you allow it to take place even if it meant that you are required to make a change of your personal settings on your computer?