Spam, Technology | featured news

An escalating cyberattack involving an antispam group and a shadowy group of attackers has now affected millions of people across the Internet, raising the question: How can such attacks be stopped? The short answer is: Not easily. The digital “fire hose” being wielded by the attackers to jam traffic on the Internet in recent weeks was made possible by both the best and worst aspects of the sprawling global computer network. The Internet is, by default, an open, loosely regulated platform for communication, but many of the servers that make its communication possible have been configured in such a way that they can be easily fooled.

Facebook is weeding out fake "Likes" on its social network that are being caused by spammers, malware and black marketeers as it strives to maintain credibility as an advertising platform. Facebook said the number of Likes, or endorsements by users, on corporate pages is likely to drop by less than 1 percent, on average, after the crackdown.

Web site analytics packages record what real people do on a site but most web site traffic comes from other computers often with nefarious intent.

Porn, violent images and other graphic pieces of content are spreading across Facebook in what appears to be a widespread and ugly spam attack.

There were more than 225 billion spam emails sent per day in July, 2010, and today, that number has dropped to 40 billion.