If you check your email account often, then you’ve most likely received unsolicited messages regarding various products. These are spam emails that are meant to entice you to click on the link and take you to a website where you can buy the products.
Studies conducted by some individuals from Berkeley and UCSD have found that it takes only one in 12.5 million conversions to make spam profitable. The researchers hijacked the Storm worm botnet, which is deemed responsible for around 20 percent of all spam. Dummy sites were set up in place of the real site, complete with inventories and shopping carts, but an error would result once a would-be customer presses the checkout button. This set-up allowed the researchers to study how spam interaction actually went. The researchers came up with a theory that the persons behind the creation of the sites were the ones who spearheaded the creation and use of spambots.
Other interesting findings include results on which of the popular free email clients are most effective against spam emails. It turns out that Hotmail was practically impermeable by spam emails, while Barracuda email accounts were the most susceptible to being infiltrated by spam. Gmail didn’t let in as much spam email as Barracuda, while Yahoo! succeeded in keeping out most spam emails.
Majority of the spam emails created by the Storm worm were sent to people in India, France, and the United States. The researchers believe that those who took the bait were probably not as educated about spam emails as those who did not respond to spam.