Spammers Set To Strike Back
from the uh-oh... dept
Every time it looks like anti-spam forces are beating back spammers, something new happens that helps spammers get around spam blocks. I was just marveling over the fact that yesterday I received probably the fewest spam messages in over a year (probably about 1/3 of my "regular" amount) and was wondering if maybe all of this spam fighting is finally having an impact. Today, however, comes the news that spammers have moved the technology up a notch. Instead of just taking over zombie computers and emailing out from those computers, a new Trojan is spreading that lets zombified computers use the mail server of that computer owner's ISP service. While earlier zombies simply set up a mail server on the compromised computer itself, this allowed spam filters (and the ISPs themselves) to track the spam back to the specific computer. In making use of the ISP's mail server, it becomes harder to block. What's not clear from the article, however, is why an ISP can't figure out themselves where this traffic is coming from (should be obvious, right?) and then proceed to take action to block or clean up that specific computer?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Wont this make ISP's more responsive?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
using zombied computers for mail
[ link to this | view in chronology ]