Security researchers at TRACELabs has found that the top botnets on the net today are Rustock and Xarvester. Rustock, which was temporarily laid low by the shutdown of spammer friendly McColo, has returned with a roar and is now sending out 25,000 spam messages an hour, or 600,000 a day. This still pales in comparison with the Srizbi botnet, which never returned to its former glory after McColo shut down. At its peak it was capable of sending 60 billion spam messages a day.

Sharing the top spot is the Xarvester botnet, which rose from the ruins of Srizbi and also sends out 25,000 spam messages an hour. Mega-D, a former giant, brings up the rear with 15,000 spam messages a day being sent. Interestingly, Waldec, the botnet behind Conficker, is far below the top three, sending only 7,000 spam messages a day. There are a total of 9 botnets that are responsible for most of the spam on the net.

What does this all mean? Well it proves that as far as spammers are concerned, where there’s a will there’s a way, and if their host is shut down, they’ll just find somewhere else to set up shop. Since there are still many countries, such as Romania and Estonia, that do little or nothing to fight cybercrime, there will always be someplace for these cybercriminals to hide. It will take a truly global effort for the war against hackers, spammers and other cybercriminals to truly become effective.