Pharma Leaks: Rogue Pharmacy Economics 101
Summary: Researchers at UC San Diego, the International Computer Science Institute and George Mason University analyzed financial records from three rogue pharmacy affiliate programs - GlavMed, SpamIt and Rx-Promotion - that processed more than $170 million in orders over four years. The study found repeat customers drove 27% and 38% of average program revenue for GlavMed and SpamIt respectively, that the top ten percent of affiliates accounted for 75-90% of total program revenue, and that sponsors netted about 20% of gross revenue after paying affiliates 30-40%.
What's compelling: The top-earning affiliates behind these programs are the same ones thought to run the world's largest spam botnets, including Cutwail, Rustock, Waledac, Mega-D, Srizbi and Grum - so the $170 million in pharmacy orders is the revenue engine that sustained the botnet infrastructure.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
- Data Breaches
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