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back to article Dodgy drug sales underpin Storm worm

Illegal pharmaceutical supply chain outfits have become the main customers of botnet farmers. Spam-pushing botnets, such as that established by the Storm worm, are raking it in advertising dodgy drug websites, according to a study by security appliance firm IronPort. Four out of five junk emails distributed through the Storm …

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  1. Adrian Jones
    Pirate

    Drug pushers

    Oddly enough, in amongst the Little Blue Pills and on-line casino ads today, I've had two spams for cigarette sellers in Europe.

    Not had them before.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Shock horror!

    Spambots linked to viagra Spam?

    Who'da thunk?

    Great research there IronPort...

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Sugar Pills

    Maybe someone should start a botnet advertising potency pills, and send out progestin instead of sugar pills. We'd all be better off if the numpties ordering from spamvertised sites stopped breeding.

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  4. Jack Harrer
    Thumb Down

    Just block bl**dy accounts

    Bank accounts I mean. If they put some pressure on firms processing credit cards and freeze bank accounts spam will stop overnight. No cash incentives - no need to spam. Also some will move to Western Union and such, but that will disable instant purchases so even the most moronic ones will have a chance to think twice before ordering.

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  5. Andy Bright

    I think they already do it

    i believe Visa at least is trying to prevent their cards from being used to by this crap, probably the others too. The thing that gets me is why anyone would actually take a pill sent to them in the post.

    Besides the many stories about counterfeit pills being produced home and abroad, the risk of poisoning yourself would seem to outweigh the need for a 3 hour erection imo.

    But what I really don't understand is how these people get away with using postal and courier services and why the police aren't closing more of them down. They have to be sent from somewhere don't they? Someone is obviously putting them in the envelopes and with courier services it's a slam dunk. Hand the courier envelope to the fed ex suited cop and it's a fair one.

    I understand that some of these 'pharmacies' operate overseas, but I know for a fact that a great many do not. You can't get next day delivery to an address in the US from China, which is what most of the crap in my junk mail inbox seems to advertise.

    Thing is in the US, dealing prescription drugs, especially pain killers, carries far bigger sentences than street drugs like cocaine or crack. I don't get why the DEA at least aren't tempted to collar a bunch of them.

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