[Cryptography] When did zero day attacks become commonplace?

[Viktor Dukhovni]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 03:07:51PM -0500, dan at geer.org wrote:

>  | I am trying to track down when the transition occurred for a talk. I
>  | remember there being a sharp transition but I can't place when.
> 
> My memory says that it was 2006 plu/minus two, but I am not remembering
> an event so much as an observation that once crafting exploits got
> too hard to be a hobby it became a profession.

The fist professional use of botnets I encountered to send spam
and malware started in 2002 with the "JEEM" trojan sending mail
via botnet nodes through open proxies.

    http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2002-111521-2152-99

Before that, spammers sent through their own machines and most
email malware was a "prank".  JEEM IIRC was the first major commercial
email worm.  The JEEM author IIRC was also a pioneer in selling
botnet nodes to others.

-- 
	Viktor.