'Gangs' bombarding Brits with spam deluge

The enormous spam spike chronicled here in Network World earlier this month is getting blanket press attention across the pond today as Brits digest headlines such as to "Gangsters hijack home PCs to choke Internet with spam," and "E-mail gangs bombard Britain in spam wars."

Whether or not Brits are keeping a stiff upper lip in response to the onslaught, the numbers being bandied about are enough to have even seasoned anti-spammers going wobbly. According to today's press accounts:

• * Spam volumes are up as much as 300 percent over the past four months.

The Times of London also offers details on a spam kingpin operating there:

"Amichai Inbar, identified as the world's fifth most significant spammer, has been using a London-based internet company to control the networks of hijacked computers, The Times has discovered. He is responsible for billions of e-mails advertising pornography, drugs such as Viagra and offers of 'cheap' shares that turn out to be virtually worthless.

"Mr Inbar, a Russian who also uses the names John Che Blau and Jonathan Blau, operates from Tel Aviv, Israel, but is linked to spammers in Russia and the US. He is believed to have gained control of up to 150,000 computers that he uses to send his own spam, or rents out the network to criminal gangs based in Russia and the US."

Experts assessing the deluge abroad and here in the United States have offered a variety of theories for the unwelcome trend, including an increased use of so-called image spam, a practice that's become so sophisticated that its pioneers are drawing words of admiration from the very anti-spammers trying to stop them.

• Security
• spam