CRTC Along with ISP and Computer Reseller Thwart Spam Campaign

Computerdealernews.com reported on 7th October, 2014 quoting Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as announcing "we have collaborated with a computer reseller and an ISP based at Saskatchewan to prevent the circulation of spam emails to millions of Canada-based residents."

The CRTC, federal regulator for implementing Canada's new anti-spam law, confirmed that it received a report in July 2014 from Spam Reporting Center of Canada about vast amounts of spam emails which were being routed via the Access Communications Co-operative Ltd's server. Access is a cable TV provider functioning in Regina, Saskatchewan.

CRTC further conducted investigation and revealed that the spam emails were ejected from a small business 'Access Communications' as its ISP.

The server of the business had been infected with a malware which connected the server to the Ebury botnet. Ebury operates on Linux servers and permits scammers to distribute spam and can embezzle secure shell (SSH) information which are employed as cryptographic network protocols.

According to Spamrankings.net, a spam ranking website, Access Communications which includes the small business in question topped the charts of spam activity in Canada in June and July 2014 with around 24 million and 73 million emails sent respectively.

As per the CRTC, neither the ISP nor the customers were aware of such spam emails being sent.

Globalnews.ca published news on 8th October, 2014 quoting Tami Mitchell, Marketing Manager of Access as saying "this can really happen to anyone."

However, CRTC alerted both Access and the customer and they took action which significantly reduced amount of spam messages being sent; Access dropped to 36th spot on the spam list by August.

Globalnews.ca published news on 8th October, 2014 quoting Manon Bombardier, Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer of CRTC, as saying "They fully collaborated with us which is our objective to work with companies to resolve compliance issues and it would be even better if we don't have to resort to enforcement actions."

Canadians are encouraged to report spam to the Spam Reporting Centre which is used by the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to implement Canada's anti-spam law.

» SPAMfighter News - 10/14/2014