March 4, 2005

Spammers move from open proxies

by brian_turner

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Messagelabs has reported that although e-mail spammers are moving away from using open proxies, the overall amount of e-mail spam received is going up.

The company reported that in October 2004, 79% of e-mail spam was sent via open proxies - otherwise known as “zombie computers”. However, by the start of February 2005, this fufure had dropped to 59%.

However, Messagelabs also reported that e-mail spam accounted for 72% of inbound e-mail in September 2004, but had risen to 83% by January 2005.

According to a quote at the Register report on the issue: Spammers adopt slippery tactics to bypass ISP defences:

Some ISPs now routinely block TCP port 25 (SMTP) traffic, or even force email traffic to be sent via the ISPs own email servers, which in turn is forcing the spammers to become more innovative with their techniques.

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Story link: Spammers move from open proxies

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