Accusations Point to Verizon Assisting Cybercrooks in Routing Nearly 4 Million Stolen IP Addresses

Verizon is well known for providing many communication services throughout the world. In what appears to be a serious accusation, Verizon has been ousted by Spamhaus Project for supposedly assisting cybercrooks by routing over four million IP addresses through its vastly-sized network.

As an international non-profit organization that maintains a spam blacklist and assists law enforcement agencies at times to track down spammers around the world, Spamhaus Project has been the go-to when it comes to identifying and catching spamming cybercrooks. Having Spamhaus Project basically point the finger at Verizon for conducting activities that allegedly aided cybercrooks is nothing to take too lightly.

Many times computer users surfing the internet will encounter sites or IP addresses that have been blacklisted. On the flip side, there is a limited number of IPs that cybercrooks are able to use for flooding the internet with their propaganda. In those circumstances, cybercrooks are forced to steal IP ranges from the IP pools of companies that don't use them because spammers can't easily obtain new IP addresses through legitimate methods. In comes Verizon, who has been accused of aiding cybercrooks with routing nearly 4 million IP addresses for later user.

The crucial step of having an ISP (Internet Service Provider) to step in and provide IP addresses for spammer use is essential to launch a proper and efficient spamming campaign. Fortunately, for cybercrooks who only want to do their malicious duties without any roadblocks, use of Verizon's throw-away or a stash of IPs that can be recirculated is a bonus for everyone for as long as no is the wiser. Unfortunately, Spamhaus has made the accusation against Verizon in their scrupulous practices while many eyebrows are being raised as such actions if they pan out to be 100% true.

Using a clever approach where Verizon relaxed ANS setup processes, cybercrooks were able to forged documents to the company and route the stolen IPs through specific servers. As a result, over 4 million IP addresses were routed through Verizon's network allowing spammers to use multiple addresses in several different locations for spreading spam to victims.

So far, Verizon representatives have been tight-lipped on the situation and Spamhaus' several complaints on the situation. Though, Verizon may be forced to pony up some explanation and later take action once law enforcement gets wind of the allegations of them conducting potentially illegal actions in aiding cybercriminals.