Spam Rates Soar in 2006 due to Botnets
In my personal email, I've seen dramatic increases in SPAM and these articles document these trends as well:
Spam Rates Soar in 2006 due to Botnets
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2077665,00.asp
Microsoft sees Botnets as a top threat in 2007
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9006818
QUOTE: E-mail security firm Commtouch says 85 percent of today's spam comes from remote-controlled "zombie" computers. A report on spam by e-mail security firm Commtouch Software dubs 2006 the "Year of the Zombies." The study found that "zombies," the name given computers remote-controlled by hackers, can number up to 8 million hosts globally on a given day.
As a result, spam volume increased by 30 percent in 2006, according to the report. "Spam outbreaks got bigger, faster and smarter during 2006," Amir Lev, president and chief technical officer for Commtouch, based in Netanya, Israel, said in a statement. "Innovative spammers quickly developed new techniques to bypass common anti-spam technologies and amassed huge zombie botnets. Outbreaks have become so fast, massive and sophisticated that most anti-spam solutions had great difficulty defending against them."
Some prior links:
Massive surge in spam hits the Internet
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/Ou/?p=354
Bot nets likely behind jump in spam
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11420
Great site to bookmark for SPAM trends (under construction until 12/30/2006)
http://tqmcube.com/tide.php