Spam Zombies from Outer Space Are Coming to Get Your Data and Take It Away

[Kristijntje]

Unless new weapons are designed to keep junk mail at bay, spammers are about to get the upper hand in the war in cyberspace.

Canadian researchers have figured out a way to create spam that could bypass the best filters and trick even the most savvy computer users into opening messages they would normally delete.

Mischief-makers would use this kind of spam -- which employs hijacked computers to make sophisticated e-mail messages that appear to be from people known to computer users -- to release viruses, worms or spyware on unsuspecting users or expose them to theft of personal information.

"It's very much an arms race between the good guys and the bad guys," said study co-author John Aycock, a computer scientist at the University of Calgary...

full article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/s...ology/home

The full research paper "Spam Zombies from Outer Space" from The University of Calgary (.pdf format): http://pharos.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/Dienst/UI...006-808-01