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Thursday 2 April 2009

BlizzardImageHosting.com - possible Joe Job

We have an email trap that seems to be hit exclusively by a low number of Waledac related spam (fake "terror reports", pharma spam, penis enlargement etc). We know that this particular address was harvested from a compromised PC, so the only people who have the address are the Bad Guys.

Unexpectedly then, the following email turned up:

From: (removed)
Sent: 01 April 2009 20:33
To: (removed)
Subject: Free Image Hosting

BlizzardImageHosting.com is a new leader in online image & photo hosting,
portfolios, and slideshow creation. We offer features you wont find
at other image hosting sites and we offer it FOR FREE!

- Upload Unlimited Images
- Share Images With Anyone and Anywhere
- Get Gigabytes of Monthly Bandwidth

and much more...

Sign up now!
http://blizzardimagehosting.com/index.php

(c) 2003-2009 Blizzard Image Hosting All Rights Reserved

So, my initial thoughts were that blizzardimagehosting.com were in league with the bad guys. Let's check out their WHOIS details:

Marquee, Media Networks webmaster -at- marqueemediaonline.com
Marquee Media Networks
6741 Sprinkle Road, Ste 293
Portage
MI
49002
US
Phone: +1.2694929957
Fax: +1.2694929958
The address is actually a branch of PakMail, but that probably means in this case that Marquee Media Networks rents a post box. The WHOIS details for marqueemediaonline.com indicate a name of Christopher Maher. So do these WHOIS details look suspicious? Not really. Usually, Waledac related domains come with WHOIS details that indicate telltale traces in China or Russia, the details for blizzardimagehosting.com are not inherently suspicious.

Marquee Media operates a web server at 216.17.107.72, which contains an ill-advised mix of adult sites and general interest sites (porn sites and fishing on the same server?) all the WHOIS details are consistent, and there seems to be nothing illegal going on.

Here's the thing - nothing at all about blizzardimagehosting.com fits the Waledac profile. This seems to be a small business running out of Illinois, nothing more. At a best guess, Marquee Media has somehow displeased the Waledac gang, either through something to do with adult content or web hosting.

So.. if you get a spam for blizzardimagehosting.com then treat it with scepticism, and as far as I am concerned this company is probably not guilty of this spam run and instead it looks like a Joe Job.

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