Spammers Using Google Translate to Bypass Anti-spam Filters

As per the security researchers at Symantec, spammers are taking undue advantage of facilities and Internet tools offered by Google to Web surfers for free. For instance, spammers have recently exploited Google Translate.

Google Translate is a tool that translates any web page, content or document from native language to a language specified by the person using the tool.

Spammers have been using Google Translate to market their wares. At present, cyber criminals are making use of this tool to bypass spam filters and to get their malicious messages enter the inboxes of users across the world.

Spammers are exploiting this free service by hacking a legitimate web page and then inserting a malicious code in it which takes computer users to site selling bogus medications.

When a legitimate site's URL is put into Google Translate, a new URL emerges that starts with www.google.com/translate...

Google Translates makes a web page appear legitimate which is easily authorized by spam filters as safe but computer users are ultimately directed to a website controlled and used by spammers.

In the past, security experts came across incidences in which spammers exploited other services of Google such as Google Docs, Google Group Pages, Google Maps and Google Searches to host spam content.

Hitomi Lin and Ching-Yu Hsu, Security Researchers, Symantec, said that spammers were exploiting this service to make their malicious codes (malware) bypass spam filters, as reported by Webuser on August 25, 2009.

They further said - hijacked URL and Google Translate in a message body creates problem for companies providing anti-spam filters to detect messages as potential spam.

Security experts further said that spammers were earlier depended on mass marketing concepts to target their victims everywhere, sacrificing quality for quantity. But thing have changed now and some spammers have realized the benefits of market segmentation.

With rising demand for translated services exclusively marketed for cyber criminals, spam have become multilingual and will change the spamming methods. This will make message localize for new malware, phishing and malware campaigns.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 9/8/2009