Study: Viagra Spam Is Profitable, but Margins Are Tight - PC World

Description

One of the most notorious networks of hacked computers used for sending spam could be generating as much as US$3.5 million per year peddling drugs such as Viagra, according to new research.

The study was carried out by infiltrating the Storm botnet, a robust peer-to-peer system that commands millions of hacked computers to send spam campaigns.

The researchers said it suggests a business model where those running the Storm botnet are also involved in running the drug Web sites.

"If true, the hypothesis is heartening," they wrote. "It suggests that the third-party retail market for spam distribution has not grown large or efficient enough to produce competitive pricing."

The upshot is that spammers and Storm network operators may be working on tight margins in order to make a profit, and their campaigns are "economically susceptible to new defenses," the study said.

The response rate to spam luring people to e-postcard sites was higher. The researchers estimated that a Storm self-propagation campaign, which seeks to infect new PCs to maintain the network, could result in 3,500 to 8,500 new bots per day.

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