From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Fri May 14 2004 - 15:28:27 MDT
If you have been receiving much more email spam containing a much higher percentage of viruses/trojans recently, as I have, this may be relevant:
Spam fighters infiltrate spam clubs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/14/spam_club/
<snip>
Instead of using open mail relays or unscrupulous hosts (so-called 'bullet-proof' hosting - in reality ISPs in the third world who pull the plug on spammers when enough complaints are received by their upstream provider), spammers are using compromised machines to get their junk mail out. Viruses such as My-Doom and Bagle surrender the control of infected machines to hackers.
<snip>
Lists of virus-infected machines ('fresh proxies' in spammer parlance) are commonly traded in spammer clubs along with spamware (bulk mailing software), according to Linford. He explained that software like Dynamic Mail Sending is specifically designed to send spam through proxy machines.
"This software rotates through a list of addresses, perhaps sending 10,000 messages from each machine," Linford explains.
<snip>
"People selling these fresh proxies are either the virus writers themselves or someone very close to them. I don't know how ties between spammers and virus writers was first forged but there is clearly a strong link there," he added.
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