Ars Technica reports that Microsoft researchers have determined that a single zombie PC can send out 24 million spam emails a month - without the user even knowing his computer is 0wn3d.
Holy cow. One computer can send a spam message to every person in the country in a year’s time, and the article reports that there are tens of millions of 0wn3d PCs on the internet, giving spammers a free, virtually unlimited network of workhorses. The IPs can’t be blocked, because every ISP in the country would end up on the blacklist.
This is a huge problem. The spammers are making money left and right. Do people realize this? Would public education reduce the business spammers receive? But when your raw materials (spam) are free, your return-on-investment is always infinite.
