Most Spam Comes From the Same Source... Mom?

At today’s USENIX Security Symposium in Boston, researchers from the University of California presented a new study of more than a million spam emails—and the findings were pretty amazing. Apparently, 94 percent of the study’s emails directed traffic to a single Web server, and 57 percent led to a single host in the U.S.

It’s still unclear whether that host could be my mom. This would explain the good-luck chain letters, insane urban myths and cute-kitten spam, but probably not the ViaG7A and Ci4Li$ ads flooding your inbox.

At any rate, the UCSD study provides new information that may help experts block the next wave of spam messages at their source, simply by disabling the server that delivers them. —Megan Miller

Image courtesy of Amanda Walter, Spam Fan Club