TY - GEN
T1 - Spamalytics
T2 - 15th ACM conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS'08
AU - Kanich, Chris
AU - Kreibich, Christian
AU - Levchenko, Kirill
AU - Enright, Brandon
AU - Voelker, Geoffrey M.
AU - Paxsonf, Vern
AU - Savage, Stefan
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - The "conversion rate" of spam - the probability that an unsolicited e-mail will ultimately elicit a "sale" - underlies the entire spam value proposition. However, our understanding of this critical behavior is quite limited, and the literature lacks any quantitative study concerning its true value. In this paper we present a methodology for measuring the conversion rate of spam. Using a parasitic infiltration of an existing botnet's infrastructure, we analyze two spam campaigns: one designed to propagate a malware Trojan, the other marketing on-line pharmaceuticals. For nearly a half billion spam e-mails we identify the number that are successfully delivered, the number that pass through popular anti-spam filters, the number that elicit user visits to the advertised sites, and the number of "sales" and "infections" produced.
AB - The "conversion rate" of spam - the probability that an unsolicited e-mail will ultimately elicit a "sale" - underlies the entire spam value proposition. However, our understanding of this critical behavior is quite limited, and the literature lacks any quantitative study concerning its true value. In this paper we present a methodology for measuring the conversion rate of spam. Using a parasitic infiltration of an existing botnet's infrastructure, we analyze two spam campaigns: one designed to propagate a malware Trojan, the other marketing on-line pharmaceuticals. For nearly a half billion spam e-mails we identify the number that are successfully delivered, the number that pass through popular anti-spam filters, the number that elicit user visits to the advertised sites, and the number of "sales" and "infections" produced.
KW - Conversion
KW - Spam
KW - Unsolicited email
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=70349272437&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=70349272437&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/1455770.1455774
DO - 10.1145/1455770.1455774
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:70349272437
SN - 9781595938107
T3 - Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
SP - 3
EP - 14
BT - Proceedings of the 15th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS'08
Y2 - 27 October 2008 through 31 October 2008
ER -