Botnets overload us with spam

Posted by Vic Laurie
May 9, 2008

If you ever wonder where all that spam gets mailed out, the answer is botnets. These networks of zombie computers account for most spam. According to a report described at PC World, one botnet using a Trojan called Srizbi is responsible for half of all spam:

Joe Stewart, director at US consultancy Secure Works, said the Srizbi Trojan is the biggest botnet in history and the most powerful. He said Srizbi, aka “Cbeplay” and “Exchanger,” can blast out 60 billion messages a day.

This is an especially insidious Trojan since it is of the variety called “rootkit”. The estimates are that the botnet contains 300,000 zombie computers.

Email, Security

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.

Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.