The recent surge in email spam hawking penny stocks and penis enlargement pills is <A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2060235,00.asp?kc=EWEWEMNL111306EP19A">the handiwork of Russian hackers</A> running a botnet powered by tens of thousands of hijacked computers. Internet security researchers and law enforcement authorities have traced the operation to a well-organized hacking gang controlling a 70,000-strong peer-to-peer botnet seeded with the SpamThru Trojan. According to Joe Stewart, senior security researcher at SecureWorks, in Atlanta, the gang functions with a level of sophistication rarely seen in the hacking underworld.