From the Washington Post:

A U.S. based Web hosting firm that security experts say was responsible for facilitating more than 75 percent of the junk e-mail blasted out each day globally has been knocked offline following reports from Security Fix on evidence gathered about criminal activity emanating from the network.

For the past four months, Security Fix has been gathering data from the security industry about McColo Corp., a San Jose, Calif., based Web hosting service whose client list experts say includes some of the most disreputable cyber-criminal gangs in business today.

On Monday, Security Fix contacted the Internet providers that manage more than 90 percent of the company’s connection to the larger Internet, sending them information about badness at McColo as documented by the security industry.

On Tuesday afternoon, I heard back from Global Crossing, one of McColo’s major Internet providers. Their spokesman declined to discuss the matter, except to say that Global Crossing communicates and cooperates fully with law enforcement, their peers, and security researchers to address malicious activity.

Two hours later, I heard from Benny Ng, director of marketing for Hurricane Electric, the Fremont, Calif., company that was the other major Internet provider for McColo.

Hurricane Electric took a much stronger public stance: “We shut them down,” Ng said.

The badness attributed to McColo was not limited to spam. It included child pornography sites; sites that accepted payment for spam and child porn; rogue anti-virus Web sites; and a huge malicious software operation that apparently stole banking and credit card data from more than a half million people worldwide.

Have you noticed your spam folder filling slower today?