After years of ignoring the zombies on its network, Verizon has announced it will finally start fighting back. According to Spamhaus, Verizon.net has twice as many zombies  on its network than any other ISP. Over 56,000 Verizon.net addresses are on Spamhaus’s CBL.  One of the main reasons spammers love Verizon is because unbelievably, it still allows open relays over Port 25, something most ISP’s blocked long ago in favor of Port 587 which requires authentication. Now Verizon has announced it too will do the same.

“The majority of our network customers will not be impacted by the change,” Verizon spokesman Clifford Lee said. “For those Verizon.net customers who use a Web browser to access their email, the Port 25 blocking should be transparent and their email usage should not be impacted. By switching to port 587, which uses authentication and is the industry accepted alternative to Port 25, Verizon will be able to quickly identify spammers, including those using so-called zombie systems, and shut them down. Those customers who may be impacted by the shift to port 587, will be notified in advance of the change and we will provide them with the technical assistance needed to accommodate the switch to port 587.”

The reason why Verizon has ignored the problem up until now is simple. Money. They simply felt dealing with the zombie issue would be too expensive. It’s good to know they’ve finally realized the cost of ignoring zombies is much, much higher.