This week news came of affiliates and networks being robbed by the “Bahama botnet”, a major report on rogue Russian affiliate networks called “Partnerkas” and arrests in 48 countries in the largest cybercrime investigation ever. Other than that, it was a quiet week. /irony

Perhaps the best reading comes in a report from Sophos that describes Russian “partnerkas”, bandit affiliate networks that specialize in spam for “fake watches, fake anti-virus software, fake pills and fake love.”

The downloadable pdf from Sophos covers the history of the “spam kings”, the invitation-only nature of the networks concerned and the software tools that they use to create thousands of sites automatically, create and run social media accounts and redirect DNS records. It’s a great read (and in case you were wondering, it’s pronounced “partnyorka”).