Hackers take down Lycos anti-spam website

Spammers are suspected of hacking into and downing Lycos's anti-spam website just hours after it went live. The website is currently inaccessible and could also be the victim of a DDoS attack.

Lycos on Tuesday kicked off its "make love not spam" campaign by offering users a screensaver that helps to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on spammers' websites. The company said the screensaver uses the idle processing power of a computer to slow down the response times from spammers' websites - much in the same way spammers use compromised PCs to distribute unsolicited email messages.

However, within hours of the makelovenotspam.com site being launched, the original front page was replaced with a simple message:

"Yes, attacking spammers is wrong. You know this, you shouldn't be doing it. Your IP address and request have been logged and will be reported to your ISP for further action."

Finnish antivirus firm F-Secure, which advised users not to participate in Lycos's campaign because of "possible legal problems", suspects the site has been hacked by a pro-spam group because "they definitely would have a motive to attack the site".

F-Secure reported that the website had returned to normal by around 10pm (GMT) but at the time of writing makelovenotspam.com was unavailable and could be under a retaliatory DDoS attack.

Munir Kotadia writes for ZDNet Australia. ZDNet UK's Dan Ilett contributed to this report.