Spammers Send Acai Dietary Supplement Spam through Cutwail Botnet

Internet security software vendor, Symantec, states that spammers are very opportunistic. They have now started sending spam e-mails containing information of a new product, Acai Power Slim, a dietary supplement to loss weight.

Paul Wood, Senior Analyst of MessageLabs Intelligence, Symantec, states that the marketing of dietary supplements through spam is a very old practice of spammers, as reported by securitypronews on May 18, 2009. However, cyber criminals have given a new twist to this age practice by exploiting the hot trends and seasonality in nutrition, said Wood.

Wood further adds that spam e-mails relating to Acai dietary supplement are originating from Cutwail botnet, implying that Cutwail is the source of the campaign. Moreover, Acai spam e-mails are based on image and account for around 10% of the total spam currently circulating on the Internet, said the security company.

MessageLabs also reveals that the volume of Acai spam has tremendously increased for the last two months (April 2009 and May 2009) from its earlier peak of 5% of the global volume to the current peak of 10%.

It has also been found that Acai spam connects people to a Russian website through a number of URLs. The spam messages lure people with a special offer available on that website to promote the dietary product. There are high possibilities of becoming a victim of phishing attack in case a user gives his credit card details to buy anything on the Russian website.

Meanwhile, Wood has advised people to be extra careful while opening unsolicited e-mails and clicking on links given in those e-mails.

In statement given by the security company, Symantec has said that spam e-mails relating to health and medicines comprise the category of second highest e-mails after Internet service attacks such as Web design, Web hosting and spamware. Hence, if any user finds a computer virus on his system or observes a phishing attempts, then he should not get worried. But make sure that the credit card details given on the website should go into the right hands.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 5/22/2009