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Tech Business
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Written by Daniel
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Friday, 26 June 2009 11:29 |
$10 might be enough to reach 1 million users, MessageLabs researcher warns
Jun 25, 2009 | 08:04 PM
By Tim Wilson
DarkReading
The rapid growth of cybercrime markets is making spam an even more attractive proposition than it has been in the past, according to a well-known researcher.
Matt Sergeant, chief anti-spam technologist for Symantec's MessageLabs unit, will offer a look at spam and the cybercrime economy in a presentation at next week's Gartner Security Summit in Washington, D.C. And the news isn't particularly good, he says.
"With the wide availability of email mailing lists, and with so many botnets for rent to carry them, spam campaigns have become appallingly cheap to launch," Sergeant says. "For about $10, you can send a million emails.
"The continued growth of spam traffic is entirely attributable to the rapid growth of the underground economy," he continues. "At these prices, you can launch a massive campaign that gets the smallest response, and yet still makes a profit. Why does spam continue to grow? Because there's still a lot of money in it." [Comments...] |
