"In a blow to anti-phishing efforts, the famed CastleCops organization dedicated to fighting spam and phishing quietly shuttered its site last week.

The all-volunteer organization investigated phishing and malware scams, and was credited with successfully derailing many of these attacks and phishing sites. CastleCops itself was also a constant target of distributed denial-of-service attacks and other scams.

CastleCops announced its demise just before Christmas last week with a short post on its Website: "It has been our pleasure to investigate online crime and volunteer with our virtual family to assist with your computer needs and make the Internet a safer place. Unfortunately, all things come to an end," the site says. "Keep up the good fight folks, for the spirit of this community lies within each of us. We are empowered to improve the safety and security of the Internet in our own way."

The shutdown came nearly six months after the departure of CastleCops' founder, Paul Laudanski, who left for a job at Microsoft this summer. Paul, who still owned CastleCops after leaving its day-to-day operations, and his wife Robin created CastleCops over six years ago.

"I believe CastleCops' impact was a great and effective one against online fraud, malware, and spam," Laudanski says. "CastleCops far surpassed anything I imagined for it, and to that end I, and in fact the community as a whole, are blessed.""

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