Ruggedised botnets boost spam

Cyber crooks have adapted to the takedown of rogue Internet service providers by building more resilient botnets, writes The Register.

An annual security survey by MessageLabs found the already high level of spam reached 87.7% of e-mail traffic during 2009, with highs and lows of 90.4% in May and 73.3% in February, respectively. Junk volumes increased still further compared to the 81.2% spam rate recorded by MessageLabs in 2008.

Compromised (zombie) machines accounted for more than four in five of an estimated global volume of 107 billion junk mail messages sent out every day during 2009.

Lessons in using the Internet safely are set to become a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary schoolchildren in England from 2011, reports the BBC.

The lessons are one element of the new "Click Clever, Click Safe" government strategy. Children will also be encouraged to follow an online "Green Cross Code", and block and report inappropriate content.

The measures have been drawn up by the UK Council on Child Internet Safety, a new body comprising 140 organisations.

For years, baffled consumers looked to Visa, MasterCard and American Express for answers when mysterious charges from "shadowy companies" began appearing on their credit card statements, says CNet.

Even though all three card companies have rules designed to protect users from unauthorised charges, as well as to weed out problem-plagued merchants, thousands of people appear to have complained to their card companies for years about three post-transaction marketing companies: Webloyalty, Vertrue and Affinion. Perhaps as many as 30 million people were affected, according to a government report.

The US Senate Committee on Commerce Science, and Transportation commenced an investigation last May after learning of the thousands of consumer complaints from online shoppers. As a result of the investigation, lawmakers have concluded that the three marketing firms employed deceptive practices in order to fool consumers into signing up for loyalty programmes and paying monthly fees.

The UK Cabinet Office has published results of a new benchmarking scheme rating stakeholder satisfaction with IT within 174 public sector bodies, says Computing.co.uk.

The Northern Ireland Office, the Pensions Regulator and the British Museum scored highest with 4.5 out of five, while the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the National Gallery and regional development agency One North East scored 4.4.

The Home Office and the Ministry of Defence both scored 3.7, while HM Revenue and Customs scored 3.3.