MCI 'makes $5m a year from spam gangs' By John Leyden Published Monday 7th February 2005 18:29 GMT
Spamhaus has slammed MCI for hosting a website selling spamming software that is allegedly integral to the illegal trade in compromised PCs. The site - send-safe.com - sells spamware called Send Safe which uses broadband-connected PCs infected by viruses such as SoBig to distribute junk mail. More than 70 per cent of spam comes from PCs infected with viruses or trojans, according to Spamhaus, a leading anti-spam organisation. By using compromised machines (proxies in spammer parlance) - instead of open mail relays or unscrupulous hosts - spammers can bypass basic anti-spam defences, such as IP address blacklists. Spamhaus reckons 80,000-100,000 new PCs every week are infected, leading to ever increasing volumes of spam. Spammers and their coding allies are coming up with new tricks to make the approach even more effective, with Send-Safe's developers as the forefront of this illegal activity. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/07/spamhaus_mci/ Old news? New news? -Joe K. Systems Administrator Network Executive Software, Inc. 888-604-5573 / postmaster(at)netex(dot)com
