Spam syndicate 2.0—Under the hood of Spambots

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Presented at TechnoSecurity&DigitalForensics 2019 by

Raashid Forster

Internet bots have been widely used for various beneficial and malicious activities on the web. Spam is probably the biggest vector of infection for both commodity and targeted malware. One of the reasons it has earned this position is thanks to spam botnets, malware that has only one job: to send as many malicious mails as possible. This session will; Discuss how to benchmark several advance techniques used by spambots today for proliferation and lateral movement; Describe their ecosystem and show how Spambots are used for other criminal activities other than spam; Detail how compromised computers create many revenue opportunities for spammer; Discuss how in recent years "takedowns" of spambots is starting to diminish; and Share extensive research on monetization approach of spammers behind these spambots . Attendees will gain a clear understanding of Spambot ecosystem, the infection vectors and social engineering tricks deployed by the criminals that make it successful, and how one can better prepare for spambot attacks.