Life Insurance Spam Emerged as The Latest Spam Tactic in May 2008

A new kind of spam attack that focuses on a short-lived e-mail but yields for the spammer potentially high returns has come into prominence, as reported by digital lifestyles on June 4, 2008,

This new spam tactic was found on May 31, 2008. In it, the user got more than ten e-mails persuading her or him to reap monetary benefits from various Life Insurance schemes in just hours. However, not even an hour passed when the users got seven different offers in their inboxes via spam mails.

According to security researchers, the new spam messages aimed to exploit people's weaker moments to victimize them. Based on the analysis, the researchers say that the advantage of new technique is in getting the e-mails to pass through filtering systems before people mark them as spam.

Also, as the e-mails escape the spam filters, chances increase of presenting them before consumers, who might feel tempted to accept the offer and go for it. Since the offers relate to life insurance schemes and embrace the policies' terms and conditions, people might take an interest in them; however, harmful they might turn out to be.

Meanwhile, with security specialists talking about the safety of users of insurance policies at the time of the new spam, they also caution users against possible scams that could relate to the overall insurance industry, other than spamming.

According to security experts, another important tactic that spammers could use to steal users' private details is phishing or tainting the insurance policy Websites with malware, while users remain unaware, and easily divulge their sensitive data.

Security professionals, discussing extensively about spammers' new tactics, also talked about the spam messages users received during the second week of May 2008 that related to fake offers of fuel discounts in the wake of rising oil prices in the US.

In the meantime, security researchers point out that all the new forms of spamming that spammers are using appear quite unusual. As, according to them, spam mails are normally devoted to propagation of malware or products like pharmaceuticals, and to financial scams.

Related article: Live OneCare Security Deletes E-Mail Folder

» SPAMfighter News - 6/21/2008