Re: Increase in traffic to/from DSL subs since August?

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () research att com>]

In message <6.0.0.22.2.20031120125430.031eaeb0@LOCALHOST>, "Jared B. Reimer" wr
ites:
> Greetings.
>
> Another independent ISP operator and I have noticed a pretty significant 
> increase in traffic to and from our broadband (DSL) subscribers since 
> August.  It's been a fairly steady uptick, at least in my case, resulting 
> in a doubling of overall average traffic to/from these folks since then.
>
> Have others seen a similar trend?  Any thoughts as to what the cause may 
> be?  Our best guess a virus/worm, possibly being used as a spam relay or 
> other proxy at this point...

At the IETF Plenary, Bernard Aboba showed a graph of spam, with a 
marked uptick since SoBig.F in August.  My guess is worm-deposited spam
relays, though Joel's guess of Nachi or Welchia can't be ruled out, 
either, without flow data.


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb