Spam Claiming to Help Addicts, Targeting Personal Information

Symantec Corp. recently released a report in which it said the Cupertino, Calif.-based maker of Norton anti-virus program and other software, has found that spammers are increasingly using sophisticated ploys to trick people into revealing personal information.

According to the report, unsolicited e-mails presenting information about drug and alcohol rehab services are likely to be spam.

The report released in the summer of 2008 said that news e-mails appeared, showing the subject titles "Overcome Alcoholism Today" or "Get help today with Drug Rehab Info", while depicting photographs of some depressed people.

According to Dermont Harnett, Editor of the Symantec report, the attack represents one of the spammers' more disastrous attacks. While opening the e-mail, a sign-up Web page appears that asks for the recipient's name, contact address and details of his/her e-mail account, which is infact the spammers' first move to get the recipient's credit card number. Also, a lot of the sinister e-mails contain bogus offers or loathsome computer viruses, as reported by courant on August 31, 2008.

Moreover, apart from the innovations, there is also an increase in the overall amount of spam. As per the report, in July 2007, approximately 66% of the total e-mail were spam, while in July 2008, the percentage rose to 78%. Also, Symantec said that US was the country generating most spam. In July 2008, the largest volume of spam, about 27% originated from the US, with Russia and Turkey following next with 7% each, the report outlines.

Finally, Symantec detected spam mails that were presenting natural products that claimed weight loss; however, they were noticed concealing monthly charge. The messages included a large number of words randomly concealed in the HTML tags, implying that the e-mail sender could use various domains with lengthy paths as well as could alter the subject line and the sender's address every time the attack is launched.

This diverse approach towards spam is something that enables spammers to continue the game, while it is a downright reminder that e-mail receivers should view their inboxes with a certain level of skepticism.

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» SPAMfighter News - 9/9/2008