Spammers cash on innocent people, select “mortgage”

According to its "State of Spam" report that Symantec issued in April 2009, spam mailers are increasingly taking advantage of the mortgage problem as they dispatch malicious e-mails on the subject.

Reportedly, since 2009 started the total number of unsolicited e-mails promising respite from foreclosures has increased. Many a time the spammers would also offer people foreclosed homes for sale and accordingly capitalize on it.

The monitored terms that the spammers often use are foreclosure, foreclose, misspelled 'forclosure,' mortgage, and interest rates, according to Symantec.

Also states Symantec that by examining these terms, two things become obvious. First, like always, spam scammers have been associating marketing bids with terms pertaining to latest events like the economic meltdown. Thus, these terms have been increasingly used in fraud spam and enhancement spam through which the scammers try to steal personal information and/or money.

Secondly, the kind of spam has been changing. Accordingly, more of 'make money fast' spam scams have been circulating. These spams are really the get-rich-quick campaigns designed around the buying of foreclosed homes that use enticing headers like "Homes given away" or "Don't let them foreclose!" reports Symantec.

Says Executive Editor Doug Bowers at Symantec that these malicious spam mails entice consumers gradually. Npr.org reported this during the 2nd week of April 2009.

Also according to Bowers, the spam scams in question would have someone on the tail end attempting to stimulate an interaction that would trick the user into sending personal information. Subsequently, the scammer, with that information could in fact make purchases, potentially access the user's financial information or bank accounts, and/or create fresh credit cards, Bowers warned. Theoretically, this shows how spammers get people to reveal their information through conversation over electronic mails.

Meanwhile, the three most preferred subject lines of spammers to draw people's interest in spamvertisements during March 2009 have been "Mortgage Loan Information," "A big instrument is a mortgage to success" and "Mortgage Payment."

Moreover, Symantec observes that spammers have been doing everything possible to make the already worried U.S. citizens as well as people elsewhere in the world to click on their malicious e-mails.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 4/27/2009