Eric Hartwell's InfoDabble

Friday, May 06, 2005

[TechWeb 4/27/2005 via W2Knews 5/6/2005] Malware, spam, phishing, spyware, bots and root kits are raking in big bucks and fighting them effectively is a huge challenge. David Aucsmith, Microsoft's Security CTO, said, "We've seen an explosion of criminal enterprise moving onto the Net in the last 18 months or so... It's no longer just for kicks. It is for making money... 70 to 80 percent of all spam comes from bots. These are your moms' machines, compromised by a bot. They're fairly sophisticated now." The "herders" who operate bot networks offer to rent out their bot networks. "People are making a lot of money with spam," he said flatly. The Wall Street Journal had an article on May 5 about true Mafia tactics where e-commerce sites were sent extortion emails, and told to pay up 10 grand protection money, or else be attacked. Looks like true crime has arrived in the neighborhood.