The effects of the McColo shut down appear to be all but over. Security experts say spam has risen by 159% since November 2008. When McColo was knocked off the net after the discovery that it hosted a wide variety of child porn and malware sites, spam volumes plummeted by 75%, largely due to the fact that several of the world’s largest botnets had their command centers there. However the group that controls the botnets wasted no time in finding a new home for them, relocating their operations to hosts in Estonia and Romania. At the same time a new botnet, Waledec, has risen to take the place of botnet giant Storm.

Experts say that spam levels will continue to rise for awhile before plateauing later this year. Viruses and blended attacks will continue to be popular and attackers will continue to produce malware that can mutate to avoid filters and signature detection. 2009 looks to be an interesting and busy year for IT departments and security experts as spammers and hackers continue to challenge and defy attempts to stop their nefarious activities.