CYBERSPACE – In order to infect the most computers with Trojans that link them to worldwide spamming networks, hackers have turned to a new lure: herbal impotence cures. According to Threat Research and Content Engineering, a division of email and content-security firm Marshal, five of the top spambots currently operating on the Web promise users low-cost natural remedies in order to lure them to websites where malicious software is downloaded to their computers automatically.According to TRACE’s February statistics, Srizbi is the most active botnet currently; it accounts for about 40-percent of all spam. Srizbi is stealthy: It operates in full-kernel mode, which allows it to avoid detection in most cases. It also reports back to its masters about which of the email addresses it contacts are active and which aren’t.

The next most-active botnet is Rustock, which is responsible for about 20-percent of all spam. Others include Mega-D (using the Ozdok mechanism), Hacktool.Spammer (also known as Spam-Mailer), the Pushdo family (including Pandex and Cutwail), and Storm.

Storm may send the least spam of the botnets, but it remains the largest with about 85,000 bots. Mega-D, which was the most active until its control servers were taken offline three weeks ago, has a comparatively puny network of about 35,000 bots.