Mcafee's Spam Project.

Have you ever pondered to yourself, "What would happen if I left my computer without anti-virus, routine maintenance, or any care to be taken of it?" Do you imagine a zombie computer, revving its engine repeatedly in disgust of your lack of decent ownership?Well,Mcafee has released the results of its Spammed Persistently All Month campaign- So you do not have to wonder anymore.

The project asked a group of 70 users from 10 countries to surf the web unprotected and gather as much spam as possible.

The guinea pigs were able to amass a total of 104,000 spam messages, an average of 2,096 messages per person and 70 messages per day for each user.

Americans topped the spam haul, amassing 23,233 spam messages between five users. Brazil finished a distant second with 15,856 messages, and the UK was fifth with 11,965.

Participants in the study also noticed significant system slowdowns from unwanted software installations.

"In just 30 days there was quite a noticeable change in the performance of their computers," said McAfee Avert Labs senior vice president Jeff Green.

"This showed just how much malware was being installed without their knowledge, and that spam is much more than a nuisance. It is a very real threat. "

The US also led the study in the number of adult-oriented spam messages, while the UK received the highest number of Nigerian '419' messages. Brits received more than 23 per cent of the infamous money transfer scam attempts.

Financial services messages were the most popular spam topics, followed by advertisements and health and medicine messages. Adult emails were the fourth most-popular, while offers for free items were fifth and 419 scams tenth.

McAfee also noted an increasing number of location- and language-specific spam, particularly in France and Germany. The large spam loads in Brazil and Mexico also suggest a new focus on emerging economies.

"Our participants came from all walks of life, from all over the world and, given their interest to take part in the experiment, they were well aware of the problem," said McAfee chief executive Dave DeWalt.

"Despite this, they were all shocked by the sheer amount of spam they attracted in such a short time and the lengths the spammers would go to in order to achieve success."AA

The Social Butterfly

In a world ripe with social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any of the other 550,000 different sites allowing you to connect with people you are already friends with, there is bound to be a shady element. That underworld of exploitation, manipulation, and incredible social aptitude. Wait what?

Welcome to the world of the over-friendly and ‘single-minded' Trojan. Single-minded, as it seems to be inviting people to the site and start networking. A Trojan is a programme that appears to be desirable (like a free downloadable game or screen saver), but contains viruses or worms (self-replicating viruses) that can create havoc with the PC and the network.

However, in the case of these social networking sites, the Trojans that plant themselves on the users' computers and send invites to all mail IDs saved in the contact list, are harmless. The Trojan embeds itself in the user's computer when he/she logs on to a social networking site and sends invites to all listed in the contact list.

The receiver – believing it to be from a genuine friend – accepts the invitations and becomes a member of the social networking site. The sites use this to increase their membership, while hackers use the technique for their phishing attempts.

They do not crash the PC nor the network, an IT specialist with a leading BPO notes. But they sure can mar friendships, relationships or even lead to unwanted and unsolicited networking.

Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) president Rajesh Chharia says, "Even though these programmes only send spam and are quite harmless, at times it can lead to embarrassing situations".

"As most of these social networking sites are used for business networking and friendship, it is not possible for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block these sites. The best option is to put in good firewalls at the user's level," he said.
So the next time you log on to a social networking site, an invitation to join the site has gone to your super boss on your behalf. But without your knowledge!