Californian researchers have found spammers may get responses from as few as one in 12.5 million people. Yet the sheer scale of some spam operations means this could be enough to run a multi-million dollar business.

The study is the work of seven scientists from the University of California in Berkeley and San Diego. They certainly got their hands dirty in the study: the team hacked into the Storm network, one of the largest automated spam networks, which distributes spam messages through computers infected by a Trojan virus.

The researchers then took control of a small section of the network (covering 75,000 computers) and used it to send hundreds of millions of fake spam messages. Many of them included links to a site designed to resemble the real spammers’ websites offering herbal alternatives to Viagra. The only noticeable difference was that users clicking on the purchase button got an error message before they could type in any credit card details.

During a 26-day period of the study, the team sent around 350 million messages but only enticed 28 people to the point that they would have bought the product. That success ratio is nearly three million times lower than traditional direct marketing by legitimate firms.

However, the researchers point out that the sales would have been worth just over $100 a day. Assuming the entire Storm network is getting the same response level, the people behind it will be raking in around $7,000 a day, or $2 million a year.

The full study argues that the most important lesson from its study is that spammers live and die by the sheer volume of e-mails they send out. The researchers suggest the most effective method of combating spam may simply be finding ways of making it more expensive to send messages. Even a tiny increase in these costs could mount up to such a huge expense that it cuts or even wipes out the potential profits.

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Entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 2:50 pm under Security, Spam.

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