Spam Zombies from Outer Space

This paper by John Aycock and Nathan Friess of the Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, will be presented next week at the European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research conference in Hamburg, Germany.

Spam Zombies from Outer Space
Abstract: How can better email worms be created? How can spyware claim more victims? How can better spam be sent? It turns out that these three questions are all related. We look at the future threat posed by email worms, spyware, and spammers that use zombie machines in a new way: sophisticated data mining of their victims’ saved email. The end result skirts many defenses, and could trick even experienced users. We present new defenses that can be deployed now against this threat.
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