Until now spammers have hidden the origin of their unsolicited
e-mails by sending them through the computers of unsuspecting third
parties.
Known as open proxies, or zombies, these remotely controlled
computers are PCs infected with a virus that allows spammers
anywhere in the world to secretly "bounce" or route e-mail through
the servers of other organisations, thereby disguising the real
origin of the e-mail.
ISPs and anti-spam sites such as Spamhaus have been able to
filter out some of this spam, by blocking e-mail sent from
computers identified as zombies.
However, according to reports, Steve Linford, the head of
Spamhaus, warned earlier this week that a new virus had been
developed that would instruct infected machines to send the spam
through the mail server of the infected PC's own ISP, effectively
sidestepping the existing blacklists.
Blacklisting affected ISPs is impractical, as the number of
legitimate e-mails being sent through their systems is immense, and
blocking those would disrupt the entire e-mail system.
"We've seen a surge in spam coming from major ISPs. Now all of
the ISPs are having large amounts of spam going out from their mail
servers," Linford told CNET News.com.
"The e-mail infrastructure is beginning to fail," he added.
"You'll see huge delays in e-mail and servers collapsing. It's the
beginning of the e-mail meltdown."
Separately, a study released yesterday from the Center for
Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland's Robert H.
Smith School of Business and research analysts Rockbridge
Associates has found that the average person spends 2.8 minutes per
day deleting spam.
This, says the 2004 National Technology Readiness Survey, costs
the US economy around $21.6 billion per year.
The survey also found that 78% of the 1,000 adults surveyed
received spam on a daily basis. Of these, 14% opened the spam to
see what it said, and 4% purchased a product or service advertised
by spam.
