Microsoft Now 5th Most Spammer Friendly ISP

Spamhaus has released its latest list of the top 10 spammer-friendly ISPs and there is one familiar name, Microsoft. That’s right. Microsoft sits in the number 5 spot on the list. Why do spammers like Microsoft? The same reason they love Gmail. They know those domains have a highly positive reputation and aren’t likely to be placed on any blacklists. This increases the chances of their spam actually reaching people’s inboxes.

The spam tracking group says spammers and scammers routinely use Microsoft’s Live.com and Livefilestore.com to send spam and redirect visitors to various sites that sell porn and fake drugs.

          “We have been notifying Microsoft about this for some months now at a high level that the abuse at livefilestore.com we believe now exceeds any genuine use of that service that may exist,” said Spamhaus CIO Richard Cox. “It should not be difficult for a company with Microsoft’s resources to identify and mitigate that abuse in-house without any external input, but so far this has not happened. Microsoft’s Live.com system has for some time been supporting an illegal drug sales operation, and Microsoft has known this.”

So what is the software giant’s response? Silence. That’s right. They have done next to nothing in response to Spamhaus’s findings although they did release this statement:

          “Spam and other abuse scenarios are not Microsoft-specific. Microsoft offers Windows Live, a suite of software and services that provides opportunities for customers to post and share their own content through Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live SkyDrive and other free services. As such, spammers have multiple avenues to target consumers with malicious activities. We take protecting our customers’ security and privacy seriously and are continually working to improve their experiences while making industry leading progress to mitigate such attacks through both oversight and technology advancements. Using Windows Live services for spam is explicitly prohibited by the terms of service, and Windows Live accounts that are found to be used by spammers are aggressively removed.”

Unfortunately that has not proved to be true. Spamhaus says several Live.com sites it listed as being used by spammers over a month ago are still active. Several security firms have also warned Microsoft that their domains are being abused by spammers and scammers, but still not much has been done. On the other hand, when Yahoo was notified of similar issues and placed in the Top 10 a few weeks ago, it responded swiftly and shut down the offending accounts and domains.

It’s disappointing to see Microsoft’s lack of interest in rectifying what is a serious problem. Spamhaus hasn’t said whether it will take things further and actually place Microsoft on its blacklist, but it may just be the only thing that will make them sit up and take notice.