The source of most spam

so where does all the spam coming from anyways ;-)

Very interesting read. A lot of people in the network security sector have had to deal with issues from all over the world, we have certainly noticed a giant jump in attacks and infractions from Russia and Eastern Europe. It is not surprising to hear that this is the major source of the worlds current spam.

Botnets are a very real pain in the ass and their methods of deployment and exploitation are very sneaky. As they stated in the article, they are not after "Melissia" style fame, they are wanting a very reliable network of spambots deployed on servers across the world as they are only in it for a profit.

When crime and corporate level business combine, you know you are in for a rough time!

I remember hearing stuff like this back in the early days - how mafia was involved in online pharma through spidering for data and spam - all that sorta stuff.

Guess it holds merit.

Vince,

The Mafia is reputed to be involved in a lot of "pump and dump" penny stock schemes in the NYC area.

Andy,

A lot of what these folks are involved in is phishing. You often end up following the money back to some hapless individual whose computer got owned.

As far as the money for sales, not much of it will be touchable. Remember, these folks are largely in Russia and eastern Europe. And they have a lot of power.

Allen,

Are we having fun yet?

Chip,

The attempts you're talking about have been, as I've heard it, largely from Chinese sources.

The botnets controlled by these people are a potentially huge tool with which to wage a data war. Some of the larger ones are apparently spending more resources expanding their network of controlled machines.

They're already being used to blackmail private businesses. "Give us $50,000 or we'll take your site down for as long as you need to change your mind."

The way to stop them, or at least reduce their impact, is to clean up infected machines, avoid future infections, and to remove infected machines from the net by blocking their access directly at the source: Their ISPs.

The first two aren't likely to happen any time soon, and the latter will get people screaming at their ISPs about getting their accounts restricted.

Needs to be done, nonetheless.


Paul

I have never seen so much disinformation in one thread. So, I've hunted down the truth:

As for the Russians, they were involved with Spam:

As for Spam being a recent threat, it has been a global problem for a long time:

Why is Spam increasing?

Don't know what to do with excess Spam?