Spammers have to be the lowest scum on the Internet food chain. There must be a special place in hell and if there isn’t there should be. The current estimates put spam emails being sent out at 90 per cent on all email traffic. With a percentage like that it is no wonder that email has become a form of communication we all feel like we are fighting to control on a daily basis.
Well yesterday, the FTC wone a preliminary legal victory against one of these spam gangs that they say account for one third of all spam emails being sent out. HerbalKing the target of the legal action apparently sent out billions of email messages per day pushing such things as pharmaceutical drug, herbal pills and replica watches. Brad Stone of the New York Times tells of Marshal Software; a security firm who worked with the FTC, who estimated that one of the group’s main botnets was capable of pumping out 10 billion email messages a day.
As for making money from spam the FTC investigators who monitored the group’s finances said that it had cleared $400,000 in Visa charges in one month alone. Who says being a slime bucket doesn’t pay eh.
While the FTC would like to believe that this bust will make a dent; however small, in the deluge of spam we get everyday Graham Cluley from Sophos is a little more realistic about it
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if people don’t notice any difference in their in-box tomorrow morning.”
Yup that pretty well sums up my inbox this morning – how about you?
