Cisco property-to-be sniffs out spam 'zombies'

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Eye of the zombie

I've often commented that having the good guys identify zombies is useful, and added that probing for vulnerable machines would also help.
But one part of the idea given in the article sounds unworkable:

Because infected users are unaware that their computers are infected, the P-Cube product notifies subscribers of the infection and redirects them to support centers where they can take corrective action.

Haven't you already received notifications purporting to come from your ISP that notify you that your pc is sending excessive spam, and ask you to click on the attachment for instructions? You know what happens when you click on the attachment.
However the ISP gets in touch with the user, it has to be reliable and secure.


Another quote:

About 40 percent to 80 percent of all junk e-mail originates from spam zombies, said Milind Gadekar, vice president of marketing at P-Cube. Because there are so many machines launching attacks, it's often difficult to identify the source of a spam zombie attack or even stop the assault.

40% to 80% from the zombies?
Taking over someone's machine must be illegal. So the financial backers of a majority (probably) of spam are breaking the law or contributing to breaking the law.
Once it's possible to identify a zombie, any advertiser sending spam from it will/could be subject to arrest as an accomplice.
Imagine what that would do to spam!

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 09/20/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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