Trend Micro - Spammers Exploit Hosting Service Providers

Security firm Trend Micro recently conducted an analysis according to which spammers chose IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of hosting service providers to deliver unsolicited emails to ensure more success of their campaign.

Spammers activated spam filters by using many tactics which included placement of random words in messages and sending them from newly-registered domains which have nothing to do in delivering spam emails.

Security researchers of Trend Micro observed the spike in spam activity and analyzed the messages and their point of origin and said that "two main sources are hosting service providers and newly-registered domains which were not associated with known or detected spam activity before."

Hosting providers are to be trusted mostly which explains that spammers prefer them mainly.

Softpedia.com published news on 1st September, 2014 quoting Jean Chen, Anti-Spam Research Engineer at Trend Micro as saying "most of the IP addresses used for sending unsolicited messages were related to a Canadian hosting service provider and some others related to US-based providers."

Newly-registered domains were other notable source of spam as spammers created these newly-born domains and did not waste any time to send spam from these domains with URL (Uniform Resource Locater) inside the mail body. They began spamming within minutes of registration of new domains and innocent users are redirected to spam websites as and when they click these domains contained in email messages.

Researchers of Trend Micro said that spammers might have used new domains without any spam history as it might not raise any suspicion and analyzed that only one organization filed all domains under the same registrar.

Security firm collected IP statistics which reveals that 85% of the infected victims are from US with Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Great Britain are other most affected countries by spammers.

Users are advised to be careful while opening their emails as spam techniques continue to evolve and adapt and never open messages, click links and download attachments from unknown senders. Trend Micro concludes that spam filtering with the help of spam filers which is a security solution can help to protect users from such threats.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/10/2014