Turbulent Economy Results in Comeback of Malicious Pump-and-Dump Campaigns

Symantec Corp., which lately declared its Symantec Intelligence Report for August 2011, states that spam mailers have yet again started capitalizing on the financial market fluctuations via dispatching massive spam associated with company stocks so they may "pump" the share prices high and then "dump" them or sell for undeserved profits.

Notably, spammers during pump-and-dump stock campaigns canvass a particular type of stocks with the idea to raise their monetary value such that those inflated stocks can be disposed off prior to their return to the original value. The junk e-mails in these scams attempt at persuading potential victims that the real value of the shares is indeed greater compared to the original; in other words their prices will shortly go steep. However, these assertions aren't any less than false or misleading claims.

Citing an instance, the security company Symantec outlined that it lately witnessed penny stock junk e-mails to surge that canvassed shares of Resource Exchange of America Corp. The e-mails had unnecessary line breaks along with gaps amidst their words for obfuscating the messages. Likewise, the subject lines exhibited broken words like "m oney" and "Stoc ks."

Reportedly, the majority of the e-mail junk emanate from China and USA while some have their origin in other nations of Asia. Moreover, most of the assaults aim at Internet-users of North America, according to the report.

Furthermore, Senior Intelligence Analyst Paul Wood at Symantec stated that scammers could reap considerable gains within days through pump-and-dump e-mail spam that were well executed. During the present unstable economic condition, several individuals might get persuaded towards spending on stocks, which as per the scammers would really enable them to gain illicitly, the analyst added. Marketwatch.com published this on August 23, 2011.

Meanwhile, alongside spam, Symantec's report as well discusses phishing. During August 2011, there was a 0.01% rise in phishing e-mails over July 2011 when 1 in 319.3 messages were associated with phishing assaults. Further, there was a rise in phishing activity within Sweden surpassing UK and making it the most attacked territorial region vis-à-vis phishing during August 2011 when 1 in 45.3 messages were detected as phishing.

Related article: Travelodge Cautions about Bulk phishing E-Mails

» SPAMfighter News - 9/2/2011