Researchers Study Spam Botnet Up Close
Biologist spend a lot of time observing organisms under various conditions to understand how they work and what they're made of. Some computer scientists took a similar approach to studying in the inner workings of the Storm botnet.
Researchers from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego took control of part of the Storm network and conducted their own experiments, including sending out spam. Their response rate was terrible by normal measures (< 0.00001%) but still enough to make money. According to the BBC report on the research,
the researchers estimate that the controllers of the vast system are netting about $7,000 (£4,430) a day or more than $2m (£1.28m) per year.
These numbers are small enough to feel the pinch of an economic downturn or even slight increases in operational costs. One has to wonder if spammers will take to studying operations research and optimization.
See today's earlier post on the growing sophistication of botnets.
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