F****** Microsoft and that W***** George Bush help boost spam traffic

Davey Winder
Monday, 28 July 2008 19:15

Business IT - Security

The cybercriminal gangs that control the Rustock Botnet have enlisted the help of George Bush, Microsoft, Paris Hilton, Spongebob and some choice expletives in order to push its share of global spam traffic up by 21.5 percent in the last month. So why am I trying to suppress a giggle?

While the Rustock Botnet might not be a name on everyone's lips, the information security industry is all too aware of what it is and its place in the global malware landscape. One of the most established of the so-called spambots, the two year old Rustock comprises of at least 150,000 infected PCs, distributing 30 billion spam messages daily.

According to the Marshal TRACE Team which analyses such things, judicious use of ripe language combined with headlines that mention George Bush, Microsoft and Al Qaeda have proved to be a highly successful spam delivery strategy.

So successful, the TRACE Team reports, that the Rustock Botnet responsible for distributing this stuff has seen a remarkable increase in its share of the shady spam market. It was a still pretty healthy 10 percent in mid-June, although that is pretty unhealthy for the rest of us.

By last week the numbers had gone through the roof, more than doubling to reach a staggering 21.5 percent share of global spam traffic. Mind you, that still wasn't enough to elevate it above the reigning Botnet King, Srizbi, which keeps its place at the top of the spamming hall of shame.

The problem with that boost of global share is that it forms something of self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. The TRACE Team believe that the large-scale spam campaign was a strategic move designed to infect as many computers as possible and so rapidly grow the size of the Rustock Botnet itself.

Enabling it, of course, to send more spam, infect more machines, get bigger and send more spam, infect more machines...

Which is problematical in this world of idiotic link-clickers. Marshal says that malicious spam has risen to an all-time high of 19 percent of all global spam compared to 10 percent in June and 3 percent where it had seemingly stagnated since February.

So just what did some of these spam headlines claim in order to get people to read, click and infect? And why am I trying not to laugh? Find out on page 2...

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