SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — Armies of hijacked computers are flooding the world with spam as hackers devise slicker ways to take over unwitting people's machines, according to a Cisco report.
Virus-infected computers are woven into "botnets" used to attack more machines and to send specious sales pitches to email addresses in low-cost quests to bilk readers out of cash.
"Every year we see threats evolve as criminals discover new ways to exploit people, networks and the Internet," said Cisco chief security researcher Patrick Peterson.
Junk email referred to as spam accounts for nearly 200 billion messages daily, approximately 90 percent of email worldwide, according to a Cisco Annual Security Report.
The United States is the biggest source of spam, accounting for 17.2 percent of the messages. Turkey and Russia ranked second and third, accounting for 9.2 percent and 8 percent of spam respectively, according to Cisco.
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