Internet Security and Programming

Spam volumes could rise considerably over the next few days now that one of the world’s largest networks of compromised computers used for blasting out junk e-mail was brought back to life tonight. The “Srizbi” botnet, a collection of more than half a million hacked PCs that were responsible for relaying approximately 40 percent of all spam sent worldwide, was knocked offline two weeks ago due to pressure from the computer security community. On Nov. 11, the Internet servers used to control the Srizbi botnet were disconnected when a Web hosting firm identified by security experts as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity was taken offline by its Internet providers. Turns out, Srizbi’s authors had planned ahead for such a situation by building into each bot a fail-safe mechanism in case its master control servers were unavailable: A mathematical algorithm that generates a random but unique Web

Read more…

Spam volumes could rise considerably over the next few days now that one of the world’s largest networks of compromised computers used for blasting out junk e-mail was brought back to life tonight. The “Srizbi” botnet, a collection of more than half a million hacked PCs that were responsible for relaying approximately 40 percent of all spam sent worldwide, was knocked offline two weeks ago due to pressure from the computer security community. On Nov. 11, the Internet servers used to control the Srizbi botnet were disconnected when a Web hosting firm identified by security experts as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity was taken offline by its Internet providers. Turns out, Srizbi’s authors had planned ahead for such a situation by building into each bot a fail-safe mechanism in case its master control servers were unavailable: A mathematical algorithm that generates a random but unique Web

Read more…

Spam volumes could rise considerably over the next few days now that one of the world’s largest networks of compromised computers used for blasting out junk e-mail was brought back to life tonight. The “Srizbi” botnet, a collection of more than half a million hacked PCs that were responsible for relaying approximately 40 percent of all spam sent worldwide, was knocked offline two weeks ago due to pressure from the computer security community. On Nov. 11, the Internet servers used to control the Srizbi botnet were disconnected when a Web hosting firm identified by security experts as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity was taken offline by its Internet providers. Turns out, Srizbi’s authors had planned ahead for such a situation by building into each bot a fail-safe mechanism in case its master control servers were unavailable: A mathematical algorithm that generates a random but unique Web

Read more…