| Experts Meet To Combat Cybercrime
Microsoft is hosting a meeting of Internet security experts, to discuss strategies to fight against Internet crime with a particular focus on botnets and related topics. Members will share information and develop strategies for the future. The meeting will be held on Thursday and Friday at Microsoft's Redmond, headquarters and will be attended by representatives from security companies, government and law enforcement officials, and others involved in network security. Botnets - a prime threat to Windows PCs - are networks of hijacked computers, also known as zombies. They are used by criminals to relay spam, bring down Web sites and distribute spyware. The conference aims to combat attempts by criminals to co-ordinate their fraudulent activities and develop more sophisticated tactics, including the use of peer-to-peer technologies in their bot software.
2006 in Spam: Zombies, MySpace, AOL
If spam in your email in-box were massive helpings of slippery, pink meat you were forced to eat—rather than delete—you'd be fat and dead. Digital spam is a time-consuming pig. It's sent in words and pictures unsolicited in hulking quantities to electronic in-boxes. But those words and pictures can be costly. And dangerous. How else could you explain welcoming a zombie into your home? Spam can cause recipients to launch an exploit that secretly turns their PC into a zombie machine for control from an outsider for malicious activity. Your zombie PC can then go out to recruit via spam more zombies—all undetected as you buzz around online for celebrity gossip. And in 2006, there was more spam than ever. Anti-spam companies said spam increased at least 30 percent this year, accounting for up to 90 percent of all emails.
US remains dirtiest spammer, but China makes more malware
Sophos said US-based computers were responsible for sending 22 percent of the year's spam, with China second at 15.9 percent and South Korea third at 7.4 percent.The United States again led the world as a spam producing, malware hosting country last year, a security vendor said Monday, but China took top dishonor as the nation that generated the most malicious code in 2006.Sophos, which published its annual threat roundup Monday, said US-based computers were responsible for sending 22 percent of the year's spam, with China second at 15.9 percent, and South Korea third at 7.4 percent. Nine out of every 10 spam messages sent worldwide were sent from so-called "zombies," computers that were hijacked and sent messages without their owners' knowledge."On a per-capita basis, the US has a disproportionate number of PCs, and a disproportionate number of them are unprotected," says Ron O'Brien, senior security analyst for Sophos.
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