Marshal8e6 - 75% of Spam Relate to Erection Problems

According to online security company 'Marshal8e6', more than 75% of the total junk (spam) e-mails are sent by businesses that deal in pharmaceuticals, particularly those that supply cures for the erectile dysfunction problem in men.

Understandably, the company's research tracked e-mail and web traffic over several months.

The research report states that Canadian Pharmaceutical, the business which Marshal8e6 has observed is connected with 8 spam spewing botnets, give out large commissions to websites that effectively promote its drugs and have enabled the company to reap US$ 150 Million in profits.

Evidently, spammers need just 2% of e-mail recipients to reply for generating a profit.

Moreover, spammers are aware that the younger generation generally surfs on the Net for sex-related content and therefore visit websites related to that. Hence, spammers know that there would be many buyers for erectile dysfunction drugs who would be ready to pay any price. However, the Viagra pills that they claim to sell are actually a fake. This way they earn easy bucks.

These spammers, who operate from foreign countries, make it hard for security watchdogs to track them since anti-spam laws implemented in countries usually do not provide the means to catch spammers outside their jurisdiction.

Besides, spammers are aware as to which incidents are exploitable. For instance, lately they have been taking advantage of the swine flu endemic for the sale of bogus Viagra.

Hence, security specialists like those from Marshal8e6 advise users purchasing Viagra online to approach the deals skeptically.

Marshal8e6's report further indicates that spammers dupe e-mail recipients into spending money on bogus designer items like handbags and watches as well as bogus antivirus software.

In addition, security specialists stated that spammers sometimes use lures involving offers to share part of their earnings to trick people into revealing their financial and other personal information. This way many netizens become easy victims as they accept the lure because of greed.

Finally, security specialists advise users to think twice prior to clicking on links and/or to watch for grammatical errors since these serve as loopholes to identify a fraudulent e-mail against a genuine one.

Related article: Marshal Identifies Six Botnets Spamming 85% of World Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 7/22/2009