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Spam Techniques

Crooks try to romance users with Valentine's Day spam

Dan Kaplan February 01, 2010

Spammers are on the Valentine's Day prowl already, and more ploys are expected, researchers at Trend Micro said Monday.

Spam magnate Ralsky sentenced to more than four years

Dan Kaplan November 24, 2009

Alan Ralsky, mastermind of a fraud campaign that delivered tens of thousands of junk mail messages designed to inflate stock prices, was sentenced Monday to 51 months in prison.

Festi botnet appears

Dan Kaplan November 06, 2009

There's a new botnet in town. Known as Festi, the network of zombie computers now is responsible for three to six percent of daily spam, or about 1.5 to three billion emails, according to the latest MessageLabs research released Thursday. The botnet, which was responsible for virtually no spam as recent as August, has managed to increase its output by recruiting new zombie computers and delivering significantly more spam from each compromised node. The junk mail typically pushes goods, such as male enhancement pills and jewelery. -- DK

Spam volume reaches new all-time high at 92 percent

Angela Moscaritolo November 03, 2009

During the third quarter of the year, spam accounted for 92 percent of all email on average, which breaks the previous record-high volume set during the second quarter of 2009.

Facebook wins $711 million in damages against spam king

Dan Kaplan October 30, 2009

Facebook has won a $711 million civil action against reputed spammer Sanford Wallace, who may now face prison time as a result.

Facebook spam has trojan

Dan Kaplan October 27, 2009

Researchers at web security firm Websense on Monday warned Facebook users to be on the lookout for a phishing email that attempts to trick them into believing their password was reset, which could lead to their PC being hit with a trojan. The bogus messages, which have been spoofed to make it look like they are coming from Facebook, falsely inform recipients that their password has been changed due to safety concerns. They are encouraged to click on a ZIP attachment to view their new password. However, that file actually contains a poorly detected executable that installs additional malware on the victim's computer and joins it as part of the Bredolab botnet. -- DK

YouTube used for ad spam campaign

Angela Moscaritolo October 08, 2009

Spammers are using an original tactic to promote advertising content -- they have begun using actual YouTube videos to advertise their goods, according to researchers.

Payload spam volume rockets to new heights

Chuck Miller October 02, 2009

After leveling off during the past two years, the amount of spam laden with virus payloads has spiked, according to a new report.

Spammers command six-figure salaries working from home

Chuck Miller September 28, 2009

Affiliates in a spam network can make $180,000 per year or more, delivering traffic to pharmaceutical sites, online casinos or fake anti-virus web pages.

Fake job emails

Dan Kaplan August 05, 2009

A security firm is warning about a new round of emails that masquerade as job opportunities but actually try to phish recipients out of financial information. According to the company, Red Condor, the messages claim to offer employment to companies such as Pepsi and Starbucks -- or appear to come from job sites such as CareerBuilder and Monster. However, the emails typically contain "payment processing" requests and ask for bank account information. The company said this type of scam is not surprising, considering the rising unemployment rate. — DK

Malware served up thanks to solar eclipse

Chuck Miller July 24, 2009

In a reprise of an old trick, cybercriminals are using SEO poisoning to attract victims to a rogue software site, according to Trend Micro.

Major spam campaign abusing Yahoo Groups

Angela Moscaritolo July 23, 2009

About one million spam emails per hour are being sent to Yahoo Groups and other free web services, including Google Groups and LiveJournal, containing bogus pharmaceutical advertising content.

Malware pace quickens dramatically

Chuck Miller July 23, 2009

During the first half of the year, more than 1.2 million unique samples of malware hit the web. That is well ahead of the pace of last year and could put this year in the record books, according to research by McAfee Avert Labs.

United States is world's No. 1 spam sender

Chuck Miller July 20, 2009

Fueled by its high rates of broadband connectivity, the United States sends out more spam than any other country in the world, according to a new report.

Social network site sued for spamming

Chuck Miller July 10, 2009

A social networking site based in San Francisco has been notified that it will be sued by New York state for deceptive email marketing practices and invasion of privacy.

Spam trends highlighting holiday, tragedy themes

Angela Moscaritolo July 10, 2009

Spammers have been busy with holidays and tragedies to exploit, according to a Symantec report.

Spammers exploiting trust in shortened URLs

Angela Moscaritolo July 08, 2009

Shortened URLs could potentially lead to sites hosting malware, phishing exploits or other spam-related content, security experts warn.

Spam increased in Q2, despite 3FN takedown

Angela Moscaritolo July 02, 2009

During the second quarter of 2009, the amount of spam was up 53 percent from the first quarter, according to Google.

Guilty plea for Detroit "spam king"

Greg Masters June 23, 2009

Five individuals pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Detroit for their roles in an international spam operation that sent billions of emails to tout Chinese "penny" stocks and used a botnet capable of evading spam detection

Google responds to call for more security

Chuck Miller June 17, 2009

In reaction to a letter from 37 respected names in the computer security field, Google is considering tighter security of its web applications.

Spam king Wallace could be jailed

Chuck Miller June 15, 2009

Sanford Wallace, the so-called spam king who has been sued on multiple occasions, may finally face prison time.

Air France crash prompts spam, malware outbreak

Dan Kaplan June 12, 2009

As expected, spammers and malware writers are trying to cash in on the Air France disaster.

Pricewert shutdown brought only short-lived drop in spam

Angela Moscaritolo June 10, 2009

Any spam drop that resulted after the takedown of a rogue internet service provider last week was short-lived, researchers said Tuesday.

The many morphs of a phishing/malware scam

Angela Moscaritolo June 03, 2009

A new attack targeting Outlook users has morphed from trying to retrieve login credentials to attempting to infect users with fake anti-virus products.

Twitter hit with rogue anti-virus scams

Greg Masters June 02, 2009

Users of popular blogging platform Twitter fell victim this past week to a scareware scam.

Spam accounted for 90 percent of all email in May

Dan Kaplan May 26, 2009

Spam levels rose again in May -- and there is no sign of a slowdown, according to a new report.

Phishers continue to wage war on Facebook, Twitter

Dan Kaplan May 22, 2009

Social networking sites are all the rage within phishing circles these days.

Computer bot profusion swells dramatically

Chuck Miller May 06, 2009

In the past three months, twelve million new computers have joined botnets worldwide.

Image spam spikes

Chuck Miller May 05, 2009

Image spam is making a comeback, making up almost 22 percent of all unsolicited mail, according to IBM's X-Force research team. Much of the spam involves messages pushing pharmaceutical products, researchers Ralf Iffert and Holly Stewart said Monday. Two years ago, most image spam, in which the payload is carried in an embedded image, focused on stock trading, but that is no longer as lucrative. The focus on drugs is likely a way to prey on people who seek help in dismal economic times, the researchers said. — CAM

Researchers hijack control of Torpig botnet

Chuck Miller May 05, 2009

A group of researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have infiltrated the Torpig botnet, which was found to be in control of hundreds of thousands of computers that were volunteering gigabytes of sensitive information.