Spamhaus Fights Back in 'Blackmail' Incident

After we've witnessed the argument between A2B Dutch ISP and the anti-spam organization Spamhaus, it seems as the episode continues with a retaliation from the alleged extortionists.

An official statement from Spamhaus reveals their side of the story which is even more interesting than what we've seen so far.

First of all they deny all the accusations related to blackmail and DoS attacks they were accused of by the Dutch company, but where did the conflict actually start?

The anti-spammers, have a blacklist called Spamhaus Block List (SBL) which contains spam sources, hosts, services and spam support services. Because A2B failed to respond to several notifications regarding the fact that they're collaborating with CB3ROB (CyberBunker), which is known for its shady activities, they were submitted to the “providing a spam support service” category and one of their IP ranges was blocked.

Spamhaus representatives believe that the internet service provider acted in their own interest, "knowingly and for profit." As the gloves are off, they're also accusing the ISP of having connections with a Chinese-based rogue host, a spam provider which also sells counterfeit watches.

After ceasing to provide transit for Cyberbunker, everything seemed to go back to normal, but in just a couple of days, Erik Bais, the company's director, filed a police report accusing Steve Linford's organization of extortion.

Upon being threatened by Bais, Linford responded "Spamhaus SBL policies are very clear, have been unchanged for over 10 years and have always included a policy of escalation where the upstream is 'knowingly involved' (or 'tacitly involved') in keeping an abuse source connected to abuse Spamhaus's users.

"Spamhaus has a duty to protect SBL users from abuse and abusive networks. If you want your network to enjoy sending communications to Spamhaus SBL users, you must ensure your network respects our policies on spam/abuse."

As it turns out, after the incident, the Dutch e-crime unit has started an investigation against A2B and the ISP it supported, being aided by the anti-spam firm which wants to make sure they're both held responsible for their actions.