A price war may be at least partially responsible for the recent increase in spam and botnet activity on the Internet, a researcher suggested this week. The operators of Nugache, one of the Web’s most sophisticated emerging botnets, appear to be expanding their network and slashing prices to customers who want to use it to distribute spam, according to researcher Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing Corp.
"We have seen offers that will allow a customer to send a million emails for under $100," Henry says. "If you send more than 10 million, the price drops to under $80 per million. There’s a price war going on, and Nugache is becoming the bargain basement." The new low prices may be partly driving the recent increase in foreign-language spam that many users have been finding in their filters and emailboxes over the past few weeks, Henry suggests. Recent reports indicate that spam comprises more than 95 percent of all email. Competition May Be Driving Surge in Botnets, Spam - Desktop Security News Analysis - Dark Reading
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