Understanding the network-level behavior of spammers
Proceedings of the 2006 conference on Applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communications
Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements
Spam double-funnel: connecting web spammers with advertisers
Proceedings of the 16th international conference on World Wide Web
Spamscatter: characterizing internet scam hosting infrastructure
SS'07 Proceedings of 16th USENIX Security Symposium on USENIX Security Symposium
Spamalytics: an empirical analysis of spam marketing conversion
Proceedings of the 15th ACM conference on Computer and communications security
Studying spamming botnets using Botlab
NSDI'09 Proceedings of the 6th USENIX symposium on Networked systems design and implementation
@spam: the underground on 140 characters or less
Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer and communications security
The nuts and bolts of a forum spam automator
LEET'11 Proceedings of the 4th USENIX conference on Large-scale exploits and emergent threats
On the effects of registrar-level intervention
LEET'11 Proceedings of the 4th USENIX conference on Large-scale exploits and emergent threats
Click Trajectories: End-to-End Analysis of the Spam Value Chain
SP '11 Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
Measuring pay-per-install: the commoditization of malware distribution
SEC'11 Proceedings of the 20th USENIX conference on Security
Show me the money: characterizing spam-advertised revenue
SEC'11 Proceedings of the 20th USENIX conference on Security
Measuring and analyzing search-redirection attacks in the illicit online prescription drug trade
SEC'11 Proceedings of the 20th USENIX conference on Security
deSEO: combating search-result poisoning
SEC'11 Proceedings of the 20th USENIX conference on Security
Cloak and dagger: dynamics of web search cloaking
Proceedings of the 18th ACM conference on Computer and communications security
Suspended accounts in retrospect: an analysis of twitter spam
Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM conference on Internet measurement conference
Priceless: the role of payments in abuse-advertised goods
Proceedings of the 2012 ACM conference on Computer and communications security
Taster's choice: a comparative analysis of spam feeds
Proceedings of the 2012 ACM conference on Internet measurement conference
Pick your poison: pricing and inventories at unlicensed online pharmacies
Proceedings of the fourteenth ACM conference on Electronic commerce
On changing the culture of empirical internet assessment
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review
ViceROI: catching click-spam in search ad networks
Proceedings of the 2013 ACM SIGSAC conference on Computer & communications security
Trafficking fraudulent accounts: the role of the underground market in Twitter spam and abuse
SEC'13 Proceedings of the 22nd USENIX conference on Security
DECAF: detecting and characterizing ad fraud in mobile apps
NSDI'14 Proceedings of the 11th USENIX Conference on Networked Systems Design and Implementation
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Online sales of counterfeit or unauthorized products drive a robust underground advertising industry that includes email spam, "black hat" search engine optimization, forum abuse and so on. Virtually everyone has encountered enticements to purchase drugs, prescription-free, from an online "Canadian Pharmacy." However, even though such sites are clearly economically motivated, the shape of the underlying business enterprise is not well understood precisely because it is "underground." In this paper we exploit a rare opportunity to view three such organizations--the GlavMed, SpamIt and RX-Promotion pharmaceutical affiliate programs-- from the inside. Using "ground truth" data sets including four years of raw transaction logs covering over $170 million in sales, we provide an in-depth empirical analysis of worldwide consumer demand, the key role of independent third-party advertisers, and a detailed cost accounting of the overall business model.