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.
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