What Makes A Spam Trend?

Are the CNN and MSNBC spam emails that are going around at present a trend? Yes - this is an example of ‘brand jacking’, i.e. it leverages a popular and trusted brand. These particular examples also use another trend - current events. Eye-catching headlines around current events, particularly things like the Olympics and the US Presidential race, can make people click a link before they think about it - and when the email appears to come from a reputable sender, the likelihood of falling for it rapidly increases .

We are getting much better at not opening attachments from users we don’t know so the spammers have moved on. Social engineering is the biggest weapon in the cyber-criminals’ arsenal and one of the easiest to beat. Rapid communication and education as to new threats is critically important. An email to staff on the new trend, just to make them think twice about clicking a link in an email is a worthwhile investment. All staff need to become security aware - it’s not just a job for IT.

August 21, 2008 | Filed Under Education | Leave a Comment 

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam - Not So Lov-er-ly Spam

Symantec released its latest report on spam. July’s results were a 12% increase, year-on-year, to 78% of all messages. As expected the ‘big’ public interest events are still a big trend, so the Olympics and the US presidential race are up there along with ones targeting people’s fears for the economy and the old favourites of losing weight and superfoods.

One of the other trends that was ‘emerging’ before and is now becoming an increased trend is to hijack legitimate websites which then host the malware. Businesses should start looking, not just if their website is up-and-running but also that it hasn’t been silently hacked and is now being used as a tool for cyber-criminals. Cross site scripting has been in the news a lot over the past few months - companies cannot afford to think it won’t happen to them, they need to change their policies today to ensure that they do not become part of the problem.

August 11, 2008 | Filed Under Spam | Leave a Comment 

I’m Rich…

… OK, so there is a few flaw in the plan, namely that I need to reply to someone in Singapore who has discovered some dormant investment accounts and I can get 25% if I help them get at the money. All sounds too familiar? Yes, it is that old phishing scam that we know and love however the twist here is that the letter arrived to my home address - it’s the same words as you would find in the ‘traditional’ email variety, just printed out and put in an envelope.

I wonder how many people will fall for this version… none I hope… and in the mean time it will cost the scammers the price of printing and posting - with luck they will be out of business shortly.

 

June 2, 2008 | Filed Under Spam | 1 Comment 

Happy Birthday Spam

This month marks 30 years since the first spam email message was sent. Back then the system could only cope with just over 300 email addresses at a time. The recipients gave the sender a hard time - they all sort of knew each other anyway!

My how times have changed, more than 85% of email traffic today is spam, billions of messages are sent everyday. Back then it was a simple invite - where the sender wanted to see the recipients, today it is much darker with one purpose in mind, making money. The past decade has seen an enormous rise in Internet users, spam and education as to the dangers of spam - but it doesn’t seem to matter there are still people who open attachments or visit websites without second thought to the potential consequences.

Anti-spam appliances and services have also grown up in the last decade and can virtually eliminate spam from arriving in the enterprise… new internet services offer ‘clean’ email feeds where spam is removed before it get to the enterprise. Various consumer email providers also offer great anti-spam functionality… isn’t it time we all used something… or will we all still be complaining about spam 30 years from now?

May 2, 2008 | Filed Under Spam | Leave a Comment