Don’t get how spammers stay in business? You might be surprised at how much this nuisance makes in a year.

P.T. Barnum said there was a sucker born every minute, but someone would really have to be gullible to fall for a spam artist’s trick. According to new research by a team of computer scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and U.C. San Diego, only one in 12.5 million recipients fall for spam attacks — and it’s still plenty profitable.

The team of researchers used “proxy bots” to take control of 75,869 hijacked machines to conduct their own fake spam campaigns — real spam, but in the name of “science.”  One campaign was promoting a pharmacy site, while another offered an herbal Viagra-like prescription drug.

After 26 days and 350-million e-mail messages, only 28 sales resulted. That comes down to less than a 0.00001% response rate.

But when applied to a network size that most spammers operate in, that minuscule success rate is still enough to earn about $7,000 per day, or $3.5 million per year.

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Tags: Pharmacy, Spam, Success rate, University of California