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Loading ...Spammer sees the light
By Joaquim P. Menezes -
Get a load of this: “Ed” - a “reformed” spammer who at one time self-admittedly pulled in as much as $10,000 - $15,000 a week bombarding hapless individuals with unsolicited marketing e-mails peddling pills, porn, and sundry pleasures, is now doing the talk circuit.
Ed’s most effective tool for spewing spam - botnets.
See related video - TrendMicro CEO on fighting botnets:
According to media reports, his latest stop was London, England, where - on Wednesday - this retired spammer (who goes by pseudonyms “Ed” or “SpammerX”) waxed eloquent on the evils of his former profession.
The event was organized by IronPort Systems Inc., a security vendor now owned by Cisco Systems Inc.
Ed – we are to believe – is now a new man.
“I’m actually a really nice guy - trust me,” he told his audience in London. Apparently he makes similar claims in a book he authored titled Inside the Spam Cartel - Trade secrets from the dark side, where Ed calls himself a “reformed spammer.”
So Ed’s turned over a new leaf. Hallelujah!
But there’s one bitty matter that needs to be sorted out before we get ready to chant his praises.
What has Honest Ed done with all his ill-gotten lucre? (By his own admission, in his final year of spamming alone, he made $480,000).
Has he kept the moolah he made sending spam to recovering gambling addicts enticing them to gambling Web sites; or to people he bombarded with pharmaceutical spam knowing they were prone to anxiety attacks or depression.
And as long that question remains unanswered – Ed and his admirers may understand if a few of us remain skeptical about his reformation.
Be that as it may, there was one point about Ed’s reported testimony that caught my attention was his clever use of botnets (networks of captured and compromised computers) to send out spam.
Apparently Ed himself wouldn’t create these botnets.
He would “rent” time on these “bots” from another group of hackers who created them. Amazing! And proof of how specialized the “spamming business” has become. And also insidious – but very real – is the power of botnets.
In my recent interview with her, Eva Chen, co-founder of Cupertino, Calif.-based anti-virus software vendor TrendMicro Inc. cautioned that we can only be indifferent to the growing botnet threat at our own peril.
Chen reminds us that:
- Hacking is big business today (estimated at around US$8 billion);
- Hacking is become a well-organized, specialized industry; hackers now have the capital to research and even hire skilled programmers just to write malicious code.”
- Bot herders and other types of hackers have started to make use of Web 2.0 tools and sites – sometimes hacking into well known social networking sites, and using pages on these sites as platforms to disseminate viruses and other types of malware;
- To counter them, software vendors can and should also use these tools in smart ways
Do you have an insights, information, perspectives on the issue of spam and botnets? Tell us what you think.
See related stories:
Seven smart strategies to battle botnets
The botnet menace - and what you can do about it
Time to kick bot, says TrendMicro chief
