Tag: Spam
Help spammers create new email accounts
You are about to subscribe to a website, a newsletter, get a free email account, or try to download something. You’ve never heard of this site before but it has what you need. Before you can click Confirm, you’re asked to complete a Captcha validation. Okay, no big deal: you enter the string and press “Confirm.” (Nov 30, 2009)
How can we stop the botnets?
Botnets are a fascinating piece of software – yes, they really are! Although they lie deep in the “dark” stack of widespread tools that are used to perpetrate cyber-crimes, they really shine as well-engineered structures. They are forced to constantly evolve because of the current and on-going “arms-race” between security experts and cyber-criminals. (Nov 20, 2009)
What, me worry?
Incidents of cybercrime via malware and exploits are on the rise, but if this recent poll is to be believed, people are still too blasé about their Internet security. The Unisys Security Index: Global Summary report 1 revealed the following: “Concerns over security in everything from online shopping and banking to safety from computer viruses, as well as national security along with personal and financial security, were significantly down over what was recorded half a year ago for populations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Brazil, Netherlands, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. (Nov 18, 2009)
Anti-Spam, Hacking and Virus Security: How Will Smartphones Survive?
With a double-digit market growth rate, non-existent protection and super-fast communications based on a variety of protocols and media, Smartphones clearly are a future target of choice for hackers and spammers. How will they survive, and at what cost? (Nov 13, 2009)
Botnet Generated Spam
Botnets are networks of compromised machines that are under the command and control (C&C) of one entity - the botnet master. They are typically used for crimes such as denial-of-service attacks, identity thefts, phishing and, most commonly, for sending spam. Current botnets have easy-to-use HTML-based interfaces and can be rented out by spammers for their various spamming campaigns. Researchers reported that during 2008, 85% of spam was generated by six botnets (Mega-D, Srizibi, Storm, Rustock, Pushdo and Cutwail). (Nov 06, 2009)
The Future Of Email Security: Where Do We Go From Here?
There’s no denying that anti-spam filters are imperative in the fight against junk mail and malware, but no single solution is fool-proof. Employing anti-spam and virus filters, stronger passwords, encryption, and so on, are not enough to win the battle against the ever-increasingly sophisticated attackers. (Nov 04, 2009)
Top 3 Spam Trends for October
The top 3 spots were determined by the sheer volume of messages that were tracked by our system. In third place, it was a tie between "Lose WeightInstantly" PDFs and the flood of messages that originated from Chinese (cn) domains. (Nov 02, 2009)
Country-Based Blocking
Is it good or bad? Well the answer is "it depends." If your organization only operates within North-America, for instance, blocking the more prolific spam sources by country may be a very good way to reduce the amount of traffic hitting your MTA. (Oct 30, 2009)
We need spam to sell our anti-spam
The ISP market is a jungle: it’s every man for himself and leave the wounded behind. Some time ago, I subscribed to a big ISP (that shall remain nameless) that was leading the market. When I subscribed, I gave my chosen username for the email address – although it was included with the service I never used it (I didn’t even configure it). The username is a mix of things that make it unique and pretty much unreachable through dictionary attacks, something like 667gptfoo99x@. (Oct 26, 2009)
Who do you trust?
There were 2 major malware waves last week that caused a big impact. The first one involved the Outlook Notification virus, which some major AV providers were still unable to catch even after 12 hours in the wild. (Oct 19, 2009)
10 Best Spam Subject Lines
Spam definitely comes in all shapes and sizes. We asked you to submit your best subject lines and after much deliberation we came up with the top ten list (and it was no easy feat!)
10 "a stone for making tortillas, a mortar for grinding red pepper."
9 "A cell phone glitch accidentally making millionaires" (Oct 09, 2009)
Hello my Friend… My name is Irina
Since “Russian wife” spam is on the rise, I’ll take this occasion to tell you a little story. An old colleague (let’s call him John) answered one of those messages about 2 or 3 years ago, just to see how things would go. The “girl” replied very quickly, and they soon began chatting about almost everything. (Oct 05, 2009)
What Email Security Shouldn’t Cost you
Customized professional services contract should not cost your organization an arm and leg. (Sep 30, 2009)
Here’s a Quick Way to Stop Chain Letters
You’ve never heard of "white spam"? Of course not, I just made it up. Also called "friend spam," white spam is legitimate email that comes from annoying sources: a friend or relative (or both) who sends his daily home-made blog, details of adventures with his dog or multiple weekly chain letters. (Sep 21, 2009)
First Michael, now Patrick. Celebrity deaths yield new spam campaigns
So how does a celebrity's death result in more spam? Spammers take advantage of our thirst for information and know that we will be Googling for the latest news and gossip. (Sep 16, 2009)
Spam’s future from the New School of Information Security
Will Spam ever stop? Some thoughts on spam economics from the New School of Information Security.
Adam Shostack (currently at Microsoft in the role of security program manager and with whom I worked on a security audit of the service delivery platform at Radialpoint) and Andrew Stewart recently published The New School of Information Security. (Sep 11, 2009)
Critics Smell Spam in White House Healthcare Email Effort
The White House has emailed thousands of messages to Americans detailing its stance on the contentious issue of healthcare reform, but some recipients say the messages were unsolicited. Critics are questioning whether the White House used address-gathering tactics similar to those employed by spammers. (Sep 02, 2009)
Image Spam is Back! Really?!
You got 2 spam messages during the week-end. Oh my God, file a complaint! But take a look at your older quarantine or spam report contents: you’ll see that hundreds, if not thousands, of spam were caught during that period. So, is seeing only 2 spam really a big deal? (Aug 31, 2009)
