Hackers Find Spam More Lucrative Than DDoS

Denial of service attacks are losing popularity with malicious cyberpunks as a method of exploiting exposed computers to convey unsolicited mail is a more profitable - and less dangerous - method of earning money illegally.

A circulated denial-of-service (DDoS) attack exploits an exposed computer network, called a 'botnet', to convey a multitude of messages to a website, causing its server to breakdown. Many hackers extract money from the website by warning to instigate a further strike. But, DDoS strikes are getting more sporadic due to growing threats to cyberpunks, as per Symantec.

According to Symantec, the drop in denial of service strikes of late is largely due to the problem in initiating these strikes, and the difficulty they have to undergo if the hit is great success, as making the targets to pay is actually the difficult feature. Still, conveying unsolicited mail presents lesser dangers, and greater benefits.

Symantec registered a total of 5,213 denial of service (DoS) strikes daily in the later half of 2006, a reduction from 6,110 in the initial six months of 2006. America was the target of majority DoS strikes comprising 52 per cent of the global total.

"DoS strikes are aggressive and dangerous. When a bot-network controller executes a denial of service strike they hazard losing a few of their bots. This could occur if an invading machine is discovered and sanitized, or when it is just barred by its ISP from infiltrating the network," comments Yazan Gable, Symantec's scientist at Symantec's Security Response Weblog posting.

Gable further states that, the "direct" price of installing a botnet prior to any kind of payment, and the likely loss of a total bot network if a code and control host is detected, also serves as an impediment.

Thus the hacker has to devote time and money on a campaign. Unsolicited e-mail is a more satisfactory usage of a bot network. It nets more cash than blackmail, is has least chances of being found, and doesn't cause any deprivation of a bot-network.

Related article: Hackers Redirect Windows Live Search to Malicious Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 5/9/2007