Spam Costs More than Malicious Attacks

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:30:51 -0500 (EST)
From: David Lesher <wb8foz () nrk com>
Subject: Spam Costs More than Malicious Attacks
To: farber () cis upenn edu (David Farber)

[Also note link between malware and attacks on anti-spam resources.
If you take the malware doing that, and put it on the spam side
of the equation, it's even worse...

        "What we need are a couple of good hangings," FTC
        Commissioner Orson Swindle said. "I have not seen one
        piece of legislation that I think would be adequate."

Yet our fearless representatives pass a bill to in effect legalize
spam, while preempting tougher state laws and blocking private
action -- the proven tactic against junk fax. Whose side are they
on again....?]



http://dynamic.washtimes.com/print_story.cfm?StoryID=20031109-103641-5567r

Spam harmed economy more than hackers, viruses
By Tim Lemke
Published November 10, 2003

    Spam caused more economic damage than hackers and viruses last
month, despite indications that the amount of unwanted e-mail
actually declined.

    London-based computer-security firm mi2G said in a report on
Thursday that computer outages and lost productivity because of spam
led to $10.4 billion in worldwide economic losses in October.
Meanwhile, the company said viruses and worms ­ also known as
malware ­ caused $8.4 billion in losses, while hackers contributed
to $1 billion in financial damage worldwide.

    "In the beginning, we thought that hackers were more damaging
than malware, and malware was more damaging than spam," said DK
Matai, executive chairman of mi2G, in a press release. "October has
shown the reverse to be true."

    Recent statistics have shown that the increased economic impact
of spam is not necessarily the result of higher spam volumes.
Although spam now comprises more than half of all e-mail messages,
the amount of spam as a percentage of all e-mail declined in
October, according to one antispam group.

    Brightmail, a Los Altos, Calif.,-based developer of spam
filters, said it scanned about 70 billion e-mail messages in
October, and 52 percent were identified as spam. In September, 54
percent of messages scanned were spam.

    Analysts think some spammers, rather than flooding e-mail
in-boxes with messages, now are focusing on using spam to disrupt
the activities of people working to stop them. These disruptions
often cause more economic damage than spam alone, analysts said.

    In recent months, antispam groups and operators of "blocklists"
that identify spammers have been subjected to massive spam attacks
that flood servers and crash computer systems. These attacks have
forced some blocklists to shut down, and many have had to spend
thousands of dollars in extra bandwidth and protection.

    "It can still be worthwhile for spam generators to persevere and
take antispam groups to task by mounting ... attacks on their
publicly available spam-block black lists," mi2G said in its report.

    It is not clear whether spam will continue to be more costly
than other computer problems. Some analysts said October was an
unusually quiet month for viruses and worms, particularly compared
with August, when the "SoBig" and "Blaster" viruses caused billions
of dollars in damage to computer systems.

    Technology companies have tried to tackle the spam problem by
developing filters and other techniques to stop unwanted e-mail from
reaching in-boxes. Meanwhile, state and federal legislators have
been working to pass laws outlawing deceptive and fraudulent spam
messages.

    But spam remains a nettlesome problem because it can be sent
anonymously and because it remains a highly profitable marketing
technique.

    "The financial gain which motivates spam is too lucrative given
the low cost of procuring the addresses and dispatching the hundreds
of millions of e-mail spam messages," mi2G said in its report. 

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