The S.P.A.M Experiment Final Report

On July 1 we released the results of our S.P.A.M (Spammed Persistently All Month) Experiment, in which 50 people from around the world surfed the Web unprotected for 30 days. By taking part in the experiment, participants were given permission to go where most Internet users would not dare, in order to discover how much spam they would attract and what the effects would be. Go everywhere we have told you not to go. Click everything we told you not to click. We then studied the daily blogs and analyzed the spam itself and confirmed that spammers are as active as ever; they are increasingly using psychological tricks to lure Internet users to part with their contact details, identity information and cash. The experiment (the first of its kind) clearly shows that spam continues to evolve, utilizing more local languages and cultural nuances, as well as becoming much more targeted in a bid to avoid detection.

Our brave and bold participants were assembled from 10 countries and by the end of the 30 days they received more than 104,000 spam emails–that’s an average of 2,096 messages each, the equivalent of approximately 70 messages a day.

Many of the spam messages received were phishing emails: emails that pose as a trustworthy source to criminally acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and bank account details. Other emails carried viruses, and many allowed malware to be silently installed on the computers by persuading participants to surf unsafe web sites. A number of participants noted a decrease in their computer’s processing speed, as well as an increased number of pop-ups.

The Global ‘Spam League’:

1. United States 23233
2. Brazil 15856
3. Italy 15610
4. Mexico 12229
5. United Kingdom 11965
6. Australia 9214
7. The Netherlands 6378
8. Spain 5419
9. France 2597
10. Germany 2331

To read more about the participants experiences, go here
and make sure you download the ‘Global Spam Diaries’ as well.

Tags: botnets, bots, malware, phishing, scams, spam