Spam messages spoof newsletter templates to avoid email filters
Monday, September 14, 2009
Email security experts are warning that spammers selling pharmaceutical products are using newsletter templates as a way to get their spam through email filtering software and to appear more legitimate to recipients.
According to web security firm Sophos, newsletter templates are the most common way for legitimate companies to provide updates and information to customers. Spammers using similar templates may succeed in fooling more people.
The September monthly spam report from security firm McAfee reported that pharmaceutical spam is being driven by excess drug supply in China. Chinese pharmacy spam "appears to be the result of a need for regional pharmaceutical companies to offload excess drugs internationally, as selling excess drugs inside the country violates Chinese law," McAfee said on its AvertLabs blog.
Chinese newsletter spam emails were the leading type of pharmaceutical spam last month, with a total of 52,428 emails that contained 1,235 unique URL domains in a single day.
Spam routinely makes up close to 90 percent of all emails. On any given day, about 60 percent to 65 percent of spam originates from China, McAfee said.
Related News:
FBI: Law firms and PR agencies high on hacker target lists - 11.18.2009
Using complex email scams, cyber criminals are increasingly targeting sensitive information held by law firms and public relations companies, according to an FBI advisory released earlier this month.
Phishing email takes numerous forms - 11.17.2009
The practice of impersonating authoritative websites and sources in order to convince victims to divulge personal information - known as phishing - has come a long way from the Nigerian "419" scams that popularized the technique in the public mind. Modern phishing is becoming increasingly dangerous in part because attacks can come from a variety of sources.
Email filtering technology working overtime, but spam won't go quietly - 11.16.2009
While modern email filtering systems can block 95 to 99 percent of spam messages, according to Tech Target, mountains of unsolicited email are still delivered every day, accounting for the vast majority of all emails sent.
Phishing scam targets investors, spoofs finance agency - 10.9.2009
The Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (FINRA), an independent regulator of brokerages, is warning investors that they may be targeted by a phishing scam through emails claiming to come from the agency.
Phishing scammers leak Windows Live Hotmail passwords to web - 10.6.2009
Hackers posted thousands of passwords from Windows Live Hotmail email accounts to a website over the weekend, in what Microsoft said was the result of a phishing campaign targeting the free webmail service.
|
