Back when Julie Andrews was in her theatrical prime, there was more than just The Sound of Music in the hills. In My Fair Lady, she repeated “the rains in Spain stay mainly on the plains” in an effort to lose her cockney accent. One could argue that Eliza Doolittle was trying to escape her past and enjoy the liberty associated with a new identity, a new language, a new sense of freedom. The same might be said of Peter Yuryevich Levashov, a Russian hacker whose fingerprints are said to be found on such exploits as the Russian intrusion into our 2016 elections.

Levashov, perhaps the world’s most notorious digital criminals, was vacationing with his family in Spain when he was arrested. According to a recent Wired article, Spain has been among the most cooperative countries in U.S. efforts to fight cyberterrorism and, oddly, it’s also a favorite vacation spot among Russian hackers.

It’s Not Over Til It’s Over

While the arrest of Levashov is a small step in connecting digital dots around the globe, it’s also a giant leap for mankind’s ongoing efforts to quell the world’s most invasive species: spam. Levashov’s Kelihos Botnet has been the most active and pernicious for many years, so hope springs eternal that the spam assault might be mitigated if only slightly as a result of his capture. But spam is just the tip of the iceberg, the vehicle by which the exploit takes root and really metastasizes in your network.

ICS is the right surgeon to diagnose and excise the malignant threats that knock on your digital door every day. Call today, before you run out of Band-aids.