Spammers in your Peer to Peet

You're jamming to the song you just downloaded. You're looking over some files you needed to complete so work. You put up some video of relatives for you mom to get. If you're using peer-to-peer technology, chances are you're getting jammed yourself.

Blue Security, a firm specializing in anti-spam and anti-spyware technology has been busy with this new information.

The recent study by Blue Security uncovers hundreds of incidents where files containing e-mail addresses were made accessible in P2P networks. Blue Security discovered that Internet users utilizing P2P networks to share music, games, DVDs and other files unwittingly expose and accidentally share Outlook and Outlook Express data files containing e-mail addresses and other contact information of friends and colleagues, as well as e-mail messages, meetings, tasks and notes. Once exposed, spammers quickly harvest these e-mail lists.

Eran Reshef, Blue Security chairman and CEO, said, "Every minute, tens of thousands of e-mail addresses are accidentally shared over P2P networks, exposing millions of users around the globe to unsolicited e-mail. Most users are unaware that this is happening to them and current technologies do not stop these types of attacks. Blue Security is committed to educating users about P2P harvesting and to breaking the current economics of spam and spyware by forcing spammers to pursue other avenues of generating revenue."

You can see the complete research at Blue Security's site as well as read their press release