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Study Links Storm Botnet's Growth To Illegal Drugs
talkinsecurity writes "Researchers at IronPort today published a study which claims to have found the 'smoking gun' that links the rapid growth of the Storm botnet to spammers that sell prescription drugs illegally over the Internet. The study shows that more than 80 percent of Storm-generated spam is advertising online pharmacy brands, and further investigation showed that spam templates, credit card processing, product fulfillment and customer support are all being provided by a 'Russian criminal organization' that operates in conjunction with Storm. This criminal organization recruits botnet spamming partners to advertise their illegal pharmacy Websites, which receive a 40 percent commission on sales orders. IronPort went as far as to do pharmacological testing on the products, and found that two-thirds of the drugs contained the wrong dosage of the active ingredient, and the rest were placebos."
Just a heads up, but there are now roughly 416 generic prescription drugs available to you for only $4 at Walmart and several other chains are joining this trend. Several are also available in 90 day supplies for $10. This pricing is available to anyone regardless of having insurance or not. $4 that is it. The list of meds now also includes birth control and some breast cancer medications. So your theory on why people circumvent the system is seriously flawed.
The real draw to these online pharmacies are the drugs like Viagra and Cialis which are not available in a generic formula. What drives these sales is not the cost it is the embarrassment. Men do not want to go ask the family doctor for E.D. meds they would rather risk going online, picking some up in Mexico or going without. Interestingly enough their Dentist buddy or their vet could just as easily write them a script for any of the above legally.
Yes vets and your dentist can both prescribe any medication they want, they are all medical doctors, just of different flavors so to speak. My soon to be wife is a pharmacist, she says she fills prescriptions for pets all the time. There are several medications that are used for both humans and animals. Even more surprising is that your dentist could perform cosmetic surgery after a weekend seminar. Try to google the key works "dentist cosmetic surgery". One of the top results says "Find Doctors and Dentists for Breast Augmentation".