abuse.ch & Spamhaus: The Impact of Your Contributions
Published on 11th November 2024, 14:00:00 UTC
If you’re contributing to any of the abuse.ch platforms, have you ever wondered about the impact that you’re making? We strongly believe that “sharing is caring” and so are shedding more light on how your contributions are making the internet a safer place - for everyone!
Your contributions have more impact than you think
Since abuse.ch first began, as a community, you have shared:
- 3.2 million malware sites
- 1.3 million Indicators Of Compromise (IOCs)
- 830,000 confirmed malware samples
Here’s how this data has actively made a difference:
- 15.22 million payloads fetched from malware URLs
- 589 million API requests answered (over a 30 day period)
- 5,000+ daily users access data exports
- 350+ daily users access malware sample feeds
- 104 National CERTs/CSIRTs receive weekly URLhaus summaries
Furthermore, this collective effort supports direct action:
- 3.18 million malware sites taken down
- 4.12 million takedown notices issued
- Multiple global takedown operations
Because of your contributions, we’re sharing impactful threat intel with the community, 24/7. But here's how we take it even further.
Making your contributions work harder with Spamhaus
With over 20 years in the Industry, Spamhaus has been around even longer than abuse.ch, and is widely recognized as the authority in domain and IP reputation datasets. To give you an idea of the data they work with, every 24 hours they:
- analyze 7.5 billion SMTP connections
- track 280 million domains
- process 22,000 malware samples
- and make 650,000 new detections relating to exploited IPs
With a focus on cyber threat intelligence data, and a shared goal to effect change and improve trust and safety on the internet, abuse.ch and Spamhaus make strong and purposeful partners.
We share more than goals
If you're contributing to URLhaus, MalwareBazaar and/or ThreatFox to share threat intel, your data is also contributing to the effectiveness and impact of Spamhaus’s datasets, strengthening cybersecurity at a global level. Let’s see how we achieve that:
Network protection: Your shared domains and IPs contribute to our DNS firewall, protecting millions of users worldwide from DNS-based cyber threats. Shared botnet C2 IPs also strengthen perimeter protection via Border Gateway Protocol feeds - the botnet controller feed has included 5,000 active botnet C2 at a single time.
Email protection: Every URL, domain and malware sample shared contributes to various Spamhaus datasets, protecting over 4.5 billion mailboxes worldwide against email-borne threats through DNS blocklists (DNSBLs).
Data for threat hunting: Spamhaus provides API access to 315 million domains, 5 million IPs and 2.9 million tracked malware distribution sites - all with rich contextual metadata. Every domain and botnet C2 IP you share enhances threat investigations and helps analysts and researchers deep dive into analyze potential cyber threats with greater accuracy and additional context.
How your contributions enhance Spamhaus datasets
Here’s how your contributions to abuse.ch platforms are added to Spamhaus datasets to deliver meaningful impact:
URLhaus - sharing malicious URLs and domains
MalwareBazaar - sharing malicious files
ThreatFox - sharing IOCs
Through our partnership with Spamhaus, we’re amplifying the impact of each URL, domain, IP, and malware file you share, reaching additional audiences to protect their infrastructure from cyber threats.
Strength in Community
As we approach two decades of fighting malware and botnets, abuse.ch has transformed from a passion project of one swiss guy, into a thriving community of almost 15,000 members.
Together, this community has shared over 5.3 million pieces of threat intel:
- assisting national CERTs and CSIRTs in defense efforts to protect their constituencies
- supporting major law enforcement agencies in some of the biggest global takedown efforts
- strengthening cybersecurity worldwide
Whether you’re a cybersecurity researcher, from law enforcement or a dedicated volunteer, EVERY contribution you make matters. We hope that you continue championing our community which is really making a difference - as we all know, sharing is caring!