Obama, Palin Topped in Election Related Spam

As per the Secure Computing new study released on October 3, 2008, the volume of spam citing Sarah Palin standing ahead of her rival Sen. Joe Biden surged by 1.9% to 1.15% (a 5 to 4 ratio) in September 2008.

Further, in a race to the ticket, spam with the name of Sen. Barack Obama defeated his competitor Sen. John McCain by 84.4% to 12.6% (a 6 to 1 ratio).

While drawing a comparison in spam, the report says, news stories about Obama or McCain gave preference to McCain with 10 to 9 ratio. Websites mentioning Obama have surpassed those mentioning McCain by 3 to 2. On the contrary, the spam related to Sarah Palin is nearer to news stories or sites representing Palin. Both of them have surpassed Biden by 7 to 2.

Director of Data Mining Research Secure Computing, Sven Krasser, said that several spam mails mentioning the presidential candidates use fake subject headlines and links to lure users to click on them, as reported by Government Technology on October 6, 2008.

Also, Secure Computing released a sample of subject lines used by spammers, such as "OBAMA AHEAD AMONGST VOTERS WITH SIMILARLY WEIRD NAMES", "OBAMA SUPPORTERS ATTACK HILLARY IN SECOND LIFE" etc.

Secure Computing also added that although the content in the spam is meaningless, the basic outline of these spam are associated with the factors important for the conventional media as fundamental campaign issues like FOX news smears, race, messianic oratory and conflicts with Clinton, as reported by PCMagazine on October 3, 2008.

It also said that the McCain related spam are equally pushed by shallow media agenda which revolve around wealth and age.

Further, Secure Computing cautioned that October 2008 might witness an increase in spam attacks and other phishing activities based on the banks acquired or went under like Wachovia and Washington Mutual.

Also, gibberish spam and meaningless mails have expanded, representing either a malfunction in the software of hackers or an attempt to remove nonfunctioning mail addresses.

Related article: Open SSL Flaw Invites Forgery

» SPAMfighter News - 10/10/2008