Microsoft Lures Spammers With Zombie Trap

On Thursday Microsoft revealed some of the technological and legal maneuvers it has used to unmask individuals using several zombies to send spam.

Zombies are computers that are infected with malicious code so they can be controlled remotely by other people for illegal purposes. Through technological trickery, criminals can use these unconscious accomplices to send illegal spam, launch phishing campaigns to steal personal information, attack Web sites and computers, or engage in other illegal activity.

Microsoft investigators intentionally created a zombie computer, quarantined it to prevent it from actually sending spam messages, then carefully watched it for 20 days while investigators tracked and traced all Internet communications through the infected computer.

The statistics the investigators compiled were staggering. In less than three weeks, this single zombie received 5 million connection requests from spammers and 18 million spam messages advertising more than 13,000 individual Web sites. Evidence gathered in this exercise contributed to a lawsuit that has now identified 13 different spamming operations.

Full Story: http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=97090