Secret life of computers as spam soldiers

Spam Mails in GMail (Source)

Did you know that 9 out of every 10 emails exchanged on the Internet are spam? And, the year 2007 went through its worst phase with spam exceeding 95% of email traffic. Spam emails which just started as another way to advertise products now turned to deception and fraud. And your computer might as well be a participant in bringing down a company's network through DDos attack, or in sending out infinite number of advertisements on viagra. It is like PCs having a secret  life because not even owners of the computers are aware when they are effected by spam.  Everything happens so discretely. However it is not the case always!

Sometime ago, my windows laptop was completely taken over by malware. To my shock, I could see spam emails being sent from my laptop by those spam processes which got installed. And all my antivirus and security software could do was try to block all those spam emails sent from my laptop in vain. It's quite scary when you cannot control those spam bots on your laptop, and the best possible solution in that case happens to be deleting the operating system and formatting your hard drive. Thankfully I shifted to Linux which doesn't pose problems with malware and viruses. But email spam cannot be avoided by anyone at all.

With spam being such a pain, Microsoft was lauded as a hero when it brought down Rustock. Rustock is a bot net which is supposedly responsible for more than 40% of spam emails. Any computer effected by this spam bot could send about 2 lakh emails per day. And, most computers effected by this malware had Microsoft's operating system. Which is the reason why Microsoft invested so much in bring down spam bots that are responsible for degrading their brand name. But, do we have a day when all the resources are put to best use by totally destroying spam? Lets be hopeful, and the next unbeatable Internet giant will be the one which can provide spam less email service.

Are you aware of your computer's secret life yet? Keep your Windows OS and security softwares upto date. And make yourself familiar with the help available around.