Graphing Internet Interaction To Spot Spammers

Gunkerty Jeb writes "Spammers, it turns out, aren't like everyone else: they have fewer friends. 'Social Graphs for Online Service Security,' a study done by researchers Yinglian Xie and Fang Yu, uses studies of legitimate and malicious social network usage to spot bogus email accounts that are used to push spam, malware, and otherwise malicious links. The researchers are analyzing natural social connections between users on the Web that are difficult for attackers or botnets to replicate. Spotting a spammer isn't hard, they say, when you look at his or her patterns of communication."

Comments

I am not a spammer!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just socially awkward is all...

According to Microsoft researchers

[fatphil]

Spam will be a thing of the past in two years' time.
        * BBC News (24 January 2004)

Chain emails?

[psithurism]

Don't you think this might incorrectly flag people who send out lots of chain emails to all their friends?

I, for one, hope so.