You are here: silicon.com > Software > Security Strategy

Security Strategy

Spam meltdown brewing in suburbia

Home PCs driving wave after wave of junk email...

Tags: home, spam, pc

By Will Sturgeon

Published: 4 August 2004 17:35 BST

The number of home PCs compromised and infected with Trojans is increasing, and coupled with the move to always-on broadband connections the situation is playing right into the hands of spammers. And what's more, organised gangs are making money selling on the processing power of compromised home PCs.

'Open relays' enable spammers to effectively 'launder' their emails by sending them through a compromised PC or server - therefore adding a further level of complexity to any 'paper trail' that might lead back to them. According to research from network specialist Sandvine, around 85 per cent of email leaving residential broadband-connected PCs is spam.

Similarly, an army of infected machines - or bot-nets - is being created by viruses such as MS Blast, MyDoom and Sobig, with the potential to harvest processing power for spammers' illegal operations.

And considering IDC claims 44 per cent of PCs in Europe are now in the home, where security and awareness of threat is typically lower, the size of this army could be vast. Home users have been slow to understand threats and many have been remiss in updating or even installing antivirus software which could reduce the likelihood of their conscription into this 'army'.

Answering a reader question for today's 'Security Q&A', Paul Wood, information analyst at MessageLabs, said this power is particularly useful for generating huge lists of potential email addresses.

Wood said: "Spammers will often select a few target domains and then buy up capacity on 'bot-nets' - networks of virus-infected home broadband machines, often controlled by criminal gangs. These mercenary zombies can be hired for as little as $60 for six hours, or $2,000 per week. These bot-nets provide enough combined computing power and bandwidth for them to be able to spam almost every email address imaginable."

  1. Zones
  2. Management
  3. Networks
  4. Software
  5. IT Services
  6. Hardware
  1. Verticals
  2. Public Sector
  3. Financial Services
  4. Retail & Leisure

  • Jobs
Security Manager

Ensure that all email messages are scanned for viruses as soon as they enter the infrastructure (inbound and outbound) and operate a quarantine of ...

Project Office Support within Central Government Criminal Justice Agency

This advert relates to a wide ranging and exciting job specification within a growing organisation that offers significant scope for personal ...

Tivoli Software Distribution Specialist - Cheshire

Leading financial organisation is looking for a Tivoli Software Distribution Technician to work within a team to deliver changes to a variety of ...

Agenda Setters 2008
Welcome to the ninth annual Agenda Setters poll – silicon.com's list of the top 50 most influential individuals in the technology and IT industries, from techies and CIOs to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Find out more in our latest special report.





Quick Sitemap Links: