Atrivo, also known as InterCage, was a Concord

Concord, California

Concord is the largest city in Contra Costa County, California, USA. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 122,067. Originally founded in 1869 as the community of Todos Santos by Salvio Pacheco, the name was changed to Concord within months...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

-based website hosting provider.

The Russian Business Network

Russian Business Network

The Russian Business Network is a multi-faceted cybercrime organization, specializing in and in some cases monopolizing personal identity theft for resale...

, a criminal organization, had used Atrivo servers. In August 2008, HostExploit, a web security blog, issued a report stating that Atrivo deliberately allowed cyber criminals to use the web domain. The 39-page report was written by Jart Armin

Jart Armin

Jart Armin is an investigator, analyst and writer on cybercrime and computer security.He was an active participant in the origins of StopBadware, set up by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Google to track malicious web sites....

, Matt Jonkman and James McQuaid. In September 2008 Pacific Internet Exchange, the last remaining company that provided upstream services to Atrivo, ended the upstream services, cutting Atrivo off from the world wide web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

. For a period after Atrivo's shutdown, botnet

Botnet

A botnet is a collection of compromised computers connected to the Internet. Termed "bots," they are generally used for malicious purposes. When a computer becomes compromised, it becomes a part of a botnet...

 and spam

Spam (electronic)

Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...

activity declined.