Unprotected Home Computers Hijacked To Send Spam

[jimmyf]

Unprotected Home Computers Hijacked To Send Spam

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1. Unprotected Home Computers Hijacked To Send Spam
A growing trend sees spammers targeting home computers with trojan programs to remotely send out spam.

The email service provider MessageLabs claims to have proof that
spammers, less and less likely to crack corporate boxes, are now
increasingly turning toward using large quantities of home computers to distribute unsolicited junk mail. The logic being that service providers will not catch on to what is happening if each victim computer sends only a limited amount of spam.

The steady increase in home users employing unprotected (no firewall), "always on" broadband connections has provided spammers/hackers with a fertile pasture of computers ripe for the picking. It is not difficult for them to locate and impregnate vulnerable machines with trojan programs that give the attackers the ability to use the machines to send out spam. Once the trojan program is installed on victim machines spam can be sent out at no cost and no risk.

The total amount of spam continues to rise and it is now estimated that fifty percent of all email worldwide qualifies as spam.