Spammers Once Again Call Image Spam For Help

According to the security researches at the Internet security firm IBM, spammers are currently recycling their old spamming tactic by implanting their junk messages in images.

It is, in fact, surprising because spammers are usually tech-savvy and adopt latest and advanced technology to meet their purpose rather than to bring an older tactic back in action, that too when security experts have found the way to detect the spam e-mails.

Holly Stewart, Threat Response Manager of the X-Force Team of IBM Internet Security System, noted that the spammers are right now practicing exactly the same thing that they had done previously, as reported by COMPUTERWORLD on May 6, 2009.

IBM points that spammers have once again been able evade the spam filters as majority of image spam used by them were related to pharma products. In the present economically testing times, pharmacy based spam tend to easily trick the concerned users.

Since March 20, 2009, IBM has been observing a robust growth in the volume of image spam, reaching record 5-10% of the total spam messages. In April, the volume of these spam accounted for 15-22% of the entire lot of junk messages.

The security firm informs that in October 2008, just after McColo was put to an end, image spam made up for only 1% of all the spam e-mails circulating on the Internet. This is a clear indication that despite a major hub of Internet crime was brought to an end, it proved largely insufficient as others started filling the blank slot. In other words, ISPs resembling McColo in nature gained impetus, ultimately leading to such a big increase in the level of image spam as detected by IBM.

Stewart warned that the return of image spam may be an indication of the revival in other "once-popular" tactics in coming times. He added that several other old tactics may also return to the front, particularly the MP3 spam that is the e-mail which replaced text with audio clip and the PDF-based spam. Both these tactics were popular among the spammers in 2006 and 2007.

However, the most important factor remains the vigilance of the Internet users, especially in such tough times.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 5/13/2009