Storm botnet worth over $2m a year

Despite eliciting only one response for every 12.5 million emails sent, spammers still manage to turn a profit, according to a study carried out in the US.

Computer scientists from the University of California infiltrated the Storm botnet which uses hijacked home computers to relay reams of junk mail.

At its height the Storm network controlled over one million computers worldwide, without the knowledge of those PCs' owners.

"The best way to measure spam is to be a spammer," the researchers commented in a paper.

The team used a total of 75,869 hijacked machines and routed their own fake spam campaigns through them. One was used to spread the Storm virus while the other advertised a fake herbal remedy to help increase libido.

"After 26 days, and almost 350 million email messages, only 28 sales resulted," wrote the researchers. The response rate, less than 0.00001 per cent, was well below that of legitimate direct mail campaigns.

Researchers estimate that when taking into account the size of the Storm network, there is money to be made; about $7,000 (£4,430) a day or more than $2m (£1.28m) per year from pharmaceutical spam alone.

Researchers concluded that while it was a good return, spammers were not making the vast sums of money that some people have predicted in the past.

www.icsi.berkeley.edu
www.cse.ucsd.edu

Save up to £16 a year this Christmas when you subscribe to Web User!