Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, for the purpose of non-commercial proselytizing, for any prohibited purpose, or simply repeatedly sending the same message to the same user. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social spam, spam mobile apps, television advertising and file sharing spam. It is named after Spam, a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant that has Spam in almost every dish in which Vikings annoyingly sing "Spam" repeatedly.
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services and products. Cisco specializes in specific tech markets, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), domain security, videoconferencing, and energy management with leading products including Webex, OpenDNS, Jabber, Duo Security, and Jasper. Cisco is one of the largest technology companies in the world ranking 74 on the Fortune 100 with over $51 billion in revenue and nearly 80,000 employees.
Linksys is an American brand of data networking hardware products mainly sold to home users and small businesses. It was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. Linksys products include WiFi routers, mesh WiFi systems, Wifi extenders, access points, network switches, and WiFi networking. It is headquartered in Irvine, California.
In computing, a zombie is a computer connected to the Internet that has been compromised by a hacker via a computer virus, computer worm, or trojan horse program and can be used to perform malicious tasks under the remote direction of the hacker. Zombie computers often coordinate together in a botnet controlled by the hacker, and are used for activities such as spreading e-mail spam and launching distributed denial-of-service attacks against web servers. Most victims are unaware that their computers have become zombies. The concept is similar to the zombie of Haitian Voodoo folklore, which refers to a corpse resurrected by a sorcerer via magic and enslaved to the sorcerer's commands, having no free will of its own. A coordinated DDoS attack by multiple botnet machines also resembles a "zombie horde attack", as depicted in fictional zombie films.
Trend Micro Inc. is a Japanese multinational cyber security software company with global headquarters in Tokyo, Japan and Irving, Texas, United States, and global R&D headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan. Other regional headquarters and R&D centers are located around East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America. The company develops enterprise security software for servers, containers, & cloud computing environments, networks, and end points. Its cloud and virtualization security products provide automated security for customers of VMware, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV) is a free software, cross-platform antimalware toolkit able to detect many types of malware, including viruses. It was developed for Unix and has third party versions available for AIX, BSD, HP-UX, Linux, macOS, OpenVMS, OSF (Tru64) and Solaris. As of version 0.97.5, ClamAV builds and runs on Microsoft Windows. Both ClamAV and its updates are made available free of charge. One of its main uses is on mail servers as a server-side email virus scanner.
The Spamhaus Project is an international organisation based in the Principality of Andorra, founded in 1998 by Steve Linford to track email spammers and spam-related activity. The name spamhaus, a pseudo-German expression, was coined by Linford to refer to an internet service provider, or other firm, which spams or knowingly provides service to spammers.
Norton Internet Security, developed by Symantec Corporation, is a discontinued computer program that provides malware protection and removal during a subscription period. It uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features include a personal firewall, email spam filtering, and phishing protection. With the release of the 2015 line in summer 2014, Symantec officially retired Norton Internet Security after 14 years as the chief Norton product. It was superseded by Norton Security, a rechristened adaptation of the Norton 360 security suite.
A wireless router is a device that performs the functions of a router and also includes the functions of a wireless access point. It is used to provide access to the Internet or a private computer network. Depending on the manufacturer and model, it can function in a wired local area network, in a wireless-only LAN, or in a mixed wired and wireless network.
Barracuda Networks, Inc. is a company providing security, networking and storage products based on network appliances and cloud services. The company's security products include products for protection against email, web surfing, web hackers and instant messaging threats such as spam, spyware, trojans, and viruses. The company's networking and storage products include web filtering, load balancing, application delivery controllers, message archiving, NG firewalls, backup services and data protection.
Anti-spam appliances are software or hardware devices integrated with on-board software that implement e-mail spam filtering and/or anti-spam for instant messaging and are deployed at the gateway or in front of the mail server. They are normally driven by an operating system optimized for spam filtering. Anti-spam appliances have existed in wide area networks and home networks since the early 2000s.
Email spoofing is the creation of email messages with a forged sender address. The term applies to email purporting to be from an address which is not actually the sender's; mail sent in reply to that address may bounce or be delivered to an unrelated party whose identity has been faked. Masked email is a different topic, providing a "masked" email address that is not the user's normal address, which is not disclosed, but forwards mail sent to it to the user's real address.
Norton 360, developed by Symantec, was an “all-in-one” security suite for the consumer market.
Belkin is an American consumer electronics and networking company headquartered in El Segundo, California. It produces mobile and computer connectivity devices and peripherals for consumer and commercial use. These include wireless chargers, power banks, charging cables, data cables, audio and video adapters, headphones, earbuds, smart speakers, screen protectors, surge protectors, Wi-Fi routers, smart home products, electronic device sanitizers, docking stations and data hubs, network switches, KVM switches and network cables.
The Storm botnet or Storm worm botnet was a remotely controlled network of "zombie" computers that had been linked by the Storm Worm, a Trojan horse spread through e-mail spam. At its height in September 2007, the Storm botnet was running on anywhere from 1 million to 50 million computer systems, and accounted for 8% of all malware on Microsoft Windows computers. It was first identified around January 2007, having been distributed by email with subjects such as "230 dead as storm batters Europe," giving it its well-known name. The botnet began to decline in late 2007, and by mid-2008 had been reduced to infecting about 85,000 computers, far less than it had infected a year earlier.
Sendio is a Newport Beach, California-based e-mail security company. The privately held company was founded in 2003 by Tal Golan, who currently serves as the company's president and CTO. By using Sender Address Verification technology, Sendio provides an e-mail security solution which stops spam, viruses, malware, phishing attacks and unsolicited e-mail from reaching the e-mail inbox. In February 2007, Sendio received $4 million in venture capital funding from Vicente Capital, Shepherd Ventures and Athenian Venture Partners. Former Microsoft CIO Rick Devenuti was appointed to the Board of Directors at Sendio in 2007.
Happy99 is a computer worm for Microsoft Windows. It first appeared in mid-January 1999, spreading through email and usenet. The worm installs itself and runs in the background of a victim's machine, without their knowledge. It is generally considered the first virus to propagate by email, and has served as a template for the creation of other self-propagating viruses. Happy99 has spread on multiple continents, including North America, Europe, and Asia.
Trend Micro Internet Security is an antivirus and online security program developed by Trend Micro for the consumer market. According to NSS Lab comparative analysis of software products for this market in 2014, Trend Micro Internet Security was fastest in responding to new internet threats.
There is no commonly agreed single definition of “cybercrime”. It refers to illegal internet-mediated activities that often take place in global electronic networks. Cybercrime is "international" or "transnational" – there are ‘no cyber-borders between countries'. International cybercrimes often challenge the effectiveness of domestic and international law, and law enforcement. Because existing laws in many countries are not tailored to deal with cybercrime, criminals increasingly conduct crimes on the Internet in order to take advantages of the less severe punishments or difficulties of being traced. No matter, in developing or developed countries, governments and industries have gradually realized the colossal threats of cybercrime on economic and political security and public interests. However, complexity in types and forms of cybercrime increases the difficulty to fight back. In this sense, fighting cybercrime calls for international cooperation. Various organizations and governments have already made joint efforts in establishing global standards of legislation and law enforcement both on a regional and on an international scale. China–United States cooperation is one of the most striking progress recently, because they are the top two source countries of cybercrime.
Victor Tsao, or Ts'ao Ying-wei, is a Taiwanese-born American entrepreneur and hardware engineer. Tsao and his wife Janie co-founded Linksys, a consumer home networking pioneer, and sold the company to Cisco Systems for $500 million in 2003.
