It’s a kernel-mode rootkit and thus hard to detect. Note: This article is also available as a download that includes a PDF version and a PowerPoint presentation. The botnets are arranged in order of spam activity, with the most popular name being listed first: To make some sense out of it all, I juggled the different attributes (totally unscientifically, of course) and came up with the following list of the best of the breed. That adds another factor when counting messages.Ĭonfused? So am I. Botnets are smart enough to create a spam message but address it to a lot of different recipients. You would assume that the number of messages would be, too. Counting the number of bot members or bytes sent is straightforward enough. In the grand scheme of things, it may not seem important. The blog author, Terry Zink, pointed out that there are several measurement philosophies: Ranking spam botnets is not as simple as I thought. While doing research for this project, I came across a blog series ( first, second, third post) that forced me to rethink.

Latest reports have spam accounting for more than 95 percent of all email messages. For more info, visit our Terms of Use page. This may influence how and where their products appear on our site, but vendors cannot pay to influence the content of our reviews. We may be compensated by vendors who appear on this page through methods such as affiliate links or sponsored partnerships. The top 10 spam botnets: New and improved

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