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Spammers benefit despite low responses

Cyber crooks are making millions of pounds on the back of their victims despite having a response rate equivalent to just one victim for every 12.5 million rogue e-mails sent, new research shows.

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD) reached the conclusion after compromising and infiltrating the notorious Storm network, which is used by crooks to send the rogue emails.

The network uses hijacked home computers and the internet security experts used it to send their own 350 million spam emails, which attracted some 28 responses in a month and £1,750.

Only a tiny fragment - 1.5 per cent - of the botnet network was used to send the emails and the online security experts say they could have made close to £5,000 a day if the entire system was deployed.

The researchers however concluded that the study showed that cyber crooks using spamming, mostly peddling fake drugs, do not make as much as previously thought.

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