The number of home PCs compromised and infected with Trojans is increasing, and coupled with the move to always-on broadband connections the situation is playing right into the hands of spammers. And what's more, organised gangs are making money selling on the processing power of compromised home PCs.
'Open relays' enable spammers to effectively 'launder' their emails by sending them through a compromised PC or server - therefore adding a further level of complexity to any 'paper trail' that might lead back to them. According to research from network specialist Sandvine, around 85 per cent of email leaving residential broadband-connected PCs is spam.
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