Software Giant Microsoft Becoming More Spam Affectionate

Microsoft is climbing up in the list of "Top 10 Worst Spam Service ISPs" maintained by security firm Spamhaus.org, which tracks the illegal commercial e-mails.

Microsoft made its appearance in the list for the first time in November 2008 with ninth spot and has reached to the fifth place in just a span of few days. Spamhaus revealed that the scammers are exploiting livefilestore.com and live.com properties of Microsoft to forward the users to the websites that are involved in the peddling business of fraudulent pharmaceutical products, Nigerian 419 and porn scams.

However, all the sites assert of being anti-spam, but some of them use a part of the income, generated by hosting the malicious links into the business policy decisions and thereby, they continue to peddle services for the spam operations. On the other hand, some of them believe that blocking the flaws at the user-end services will help to make the cost of access very expensive to the bottom lines of the spammers.

Chief Information Officer, Richard Cox, Spamhaus, stated that spammers publicize the malicious links in large volumes at the properties of Microsoft, realizing the fact that the anti-spam firms are not able to completely block these properties, as reported by Washingtonpost on November 21, 2008. Cox further added that they are constantly warning Microsoft that the level of exploitation of livefilestore.com has outshined the level of its existing legitimate use.

In the above context, John Scarrow, General Manager, safety Services, Microsoft, commented that such abuses are not just specific to Microsoft.

Spammers have also exploited the "Windows Live" service that allows the consumers to send and share their personal contents, as reported by Washingtonpost.

Cox stated that Microsoft is very concerned about the privacy and security of its users and is constantly working to reinforce their belief by flushing out such illegal activities through supervision and technology enhancements. Also, the terms of service are strictly restricting the use of Windows Live services for spamming activities and the Windows Live accounts, which are discovered to be used by the evildoers, have been removed with immediate effect.

Related article: Software Vulnerability could Let Hackers Take Over US Power Grid

» SPAMfighter News - 12/8/2008