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How Hackers Identify Their Targets

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the drawing-a-bead dept.

narramissic writes "In a recent article, security guru Brent Huston writes about research he did to get inside the minds of spammers and expose some of the processes they use to identify potential targets. Huston says that among the four common ways that spam is spread, the most common method that spammers use is via open relays. Huston's research also revealed that 'they were doing much more server analysis' than he had expected and that they take a multi-step approach: 'They scan the server for proper RFC compliance, and then they send a test message to a disposable address. Only after these are complete did they adopt the tool to dump their spam.'"

3 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. hacker /= spammer by enlefo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The title to the story says how hackers identify there targets but the story is about spammer. They are different.

  2. Hackers != Spammers by NaNO2x · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the type of negative image that hackers need to stop. I had a long conversation with someone on the differences between hackers and crackers and I can understand the confusion, but spammers and hackers, this is taking it a bit to far.

    --
    Utinam me logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant.
  3. Re:Duh... It's so obvious... by daeg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It doesn't take a security vulnerability to make sendmail vulnerable... all it takes is a rookie Linux administrator configuring it and setting it up incorrectly.

    Many times I imagine that rookie administrators are trying to get sendmail just to work right so they enable something they shouldn't. It works... and they never bother to address their issue correctly, or even know that they addressed it incorrectly.