Spammers Exploit New Image Spam Scheme To Attack Computers

Cyberpunks and spammers are broadening the scope of their developing e-mail attacks. Rather than attaching pictures in e-mail, unsolicited e-mailers are inserting links to the pictures that are installed on common photo-sharing websites.

Instead of inserting a picture inside an email, spammers are utilizing a picture-hosting site to link up immediately with the picture, drastically modifying their bulks, stated Dmitri Alperovitch, Secure Computing's leading research scientist, according to SearchSecurity.com on April 27, 2007. The spam email that reaches the end-users' inboxes appears identical to the image spam that users are used to viewing, except in place of the picture being attached to the message, it is connected to the ImageShack portal, alleged Alperovitch.

The year old image spam usually employs a graphic enclosed in e-mail in lieu of standard text, as it is much difficult for anti-virus programs to identify terms that usually alert that it is a spam. Image spam is often designed for encouraging illegal stock frauds or drugs like Viagra.

Alperovitch detected this along with other investigators whilst supervising a botnet instruction and nerve center linked to the malicious software, Grom. The scientists think the spam network is related to Russian malware authors.

The latest image spam is a triumph for spam authors who have been disputed by antispam purveyors in the past months, alleged Alperovitch. To bypass the latest image screening tools installed by several anti-spam purveyors lately, the spammers have had to move heaven and earth to change their graphics and bring in random pixels, dynamic colors and animation, he stated. The high-tech algorithms led to a drop in the volume of spam infiltrating into business email inboxes, he added.

"At present, they've significantly augmented spam distribution. They don't have to create an image immediately and no complicated algorithms are required. They just have to transmit a link in the email and the rest is executed in no time."

Exploiting spam promotion, spam authors are enlarging the volume of their botnets worldwide, asserted Alperovitch. Botnets have multiplied in the past half-year (Oct 2006-March 2007), climbing from 250,000 Internet connected zombie computers and to over 500,000.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 5/5/2007