Posts tagged spam
Commit to “Loving” your data
Feb 14th
By: Blake McConnell
For most people, Valentine’s Day conjures up thoughts of candy, flowers and secret admirers. Well, here at Symantec, it makes us think about information.
Blake McConnell
Yes, information. It may not be the most romantic notion, but the amount of “love” you give your data can have a significant impact on the success of your company. Your information – from company plans to customer financial information – is the backbone of your business, so today make a commitment to giving it a little extra care and attention.
In a recent Symantec survey, 74 per cent of SMB respondents said they were afraid of losing electronic information. Read the rest of this entry »
Spam levels decline in January, but not for long
Jan 30th
After the dramatic decline in spam levels seen over the holidays, spam now accounts for 78.6 per cent of all email traffic, the lowest rate since March 2009. Results from our January 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Report have found that spam volumes are 65.9 per cent lower than last year at this time.
Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Symantec Hosted Services
During December 25 to January 1, spam volumes decreased from 80.2 billion spam emails per day to 33.5 billion spam emails. We have found two reasons for this dramatic decline – the first being a halt in the spam-sending activities of three botnets, Rustock, Lethic and Xarvester and the second due to unrest among pharmaceutical spam-sending gangs.
In May 2010, pharmaceutical spam peaked with 85 per cent of spam being related to pharmaceutical products. However in January 2011, MessageLabs Intelligence found that pharmaceutical spam accounted for only 59.1 per cent of all spam. The closure of spam affiliate, Spamit, in October was partially responsible for this disruption. The Canadian Pharmacy brand, previously the most prolific pharmaceutical spam brands, disappeared when Spamit shut down. Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook suspends controversial data mining feature – for now
Jan 19th
Well at least this time they didn’t wait to get rapped on the knuckles by Canadian privacy and security officials.
Faced with strong criticism over a feature that allows application developers and third party Web sites to access mobile phone numbers and addresses of some of its users, Facebook announced on Monday that it was temporarily disabling the feature.
Nestor Arellano
Basically, the now suspended feature allowed developers to ask for your home address and mobile phone number if you’ve included this information in your profile.
In a blog post Facebook, says it has decided to suspend the feature after receiving “useful feedback.”
Temporarily disabling? Useful feedback? Maybe it’s more like user outrage. Don’t these people get it? Read the rest of this entry »
Security Predictions for 2011
Dec 17th
On December 7, we released our MessageLabs Intelligence 2010 Annual Security Report which highlighted the changes in the threat landscape during 2010 and looked ahead to potential trends for 2011. This blog is a snap shot of some of the trends and predictions noted in the report.
Global Spam Trends
In 2011, spam will become more culturally and linguistically diverse. The use of English in spam will fall from approximately 95 per cent of all spam to below 90 per cent driven by economic growth and broadband adoption in emerging economies. For instance, spammers will target Brazil with more than 40 percent of spam in Portuguese. Portuguese and Spanish will become some of the most popular languages used in spam other than English.
Spammers can be quite creative
Nov 19th
By Mathew Nisbet
Spammers will try anything to get their spam past your filters and into your inbox. We’ve seen many tricks involving random text hidden in the body, use of images, a message body with nothing but a link to the main message somewhere on the web. This example is one of the more elaborate (but ultimately futile) attempts that I’ve seen.
Recently we have been seeing a run of emails that pretend to be informing the recipient that they have a number of “unread” or “important” messages waiting for them on a well known social network. Over a 3 day period, between October 24 and 26, we saw roughly 18,500 of these. Since then the volume has dropped to less than 100 per day, but we are still seeing them.
The use of a well known social media brand name is the first part of the approach to bypass filters. The message copies the format of common legitimate email subjects and cannot be detected based on a signature related to the subject alone. It is also a piece of social engineering, to try and entice an unsuspecting user into opening the email. Read the rest of this entry »
What caused sudden drop in spam traffic?
Oct 28th
It has been widely reported that global spam volumes have decreased, especially on October 3 when spam levels dropped to their lowest for some time.
Dan Bleaken
At Symantec Hosted Services we have a wealth of data on spam traffic, and crucially what contribution to global spam each of the major botnets makes. This blog will take a close look at botnet spam, what factors influence botnet output, and will try to explain some of the changes that occurred around October 3. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s mostly tricks not treats with Halloween online ads
Oct 24th
Halloween is drawing near, so the spammers are busy laying out bait in the form of Halloween jackpots, sweepstakes, gift cards, e-cards, personalized gifts, online contests, and even print products and costumes. 
Perhaps this is one of those seasons during which people—both young and old—celebrate with full gusto.
Unfortunately, this type of popular event brings with it a whole host of malicious circumstances on the Internet that people are being enticed to fall for. For it is common knowledge that where people show some vulnerability, spammers are not far behind!
Dating scams on the rise
Sep 22nd
Dating scams are a common spam email problem. Spam relating to sex or dating currently accounts for approximately 4 per cent of global spam.
In a typical scam, a recipient (male or female) would receive an email from a stranger and the email might say something along the lines of: “I found your information on a website. I think you are my true love…write back to me soon”. Read the rest of this entry »
Beware of tricks used by spammers
Sep 8th
It is well known that spammers use many different tactics to add legitimacy to their emails.
Two techniques that are popular include personalizing emails and using images to try to fool the recipient into being scammed.
Spammers will often add text to email that specifically mentions the recipient. This is a technique used in legitimate marketing campaigns where a well known company has access to the users’ personal information because the user has signed up to receive their newsletter or is a previous customer. However for a spammer, obtaining personal information is not so simple. An easy way for them to get a similar effect though, is to simply use the email address to which they are sending. While this is not a name, it can have the same effect by making the email appear it was sent in accordance with a legitimate mailing list, rather than spamming at random. This can be a fairly effective tactic as a lot of websites now use email addresses as usernames.
World Cup-related scams
Jul 8th
Buying a fake World Cup ticket isn’t the only scam that awaits the unwary footie fan online. As the tournament in South Africa reaches its climax and excitement mounts in the lead up to the final, fraudsters are continuing to augment their attacks with a variety of World Cup-related email ruses. Supporters will need a sharp defensive line-up to keep them out.
Paul Wood
Despite FIFA’s stringent rules about distribution and resale, there are still World Cup tickets on offer from unauthorized online outlets. Some of these will be old-fashioned touts using new channels to sell tickets at higher than face value. Some will be genuine people who bought tickets and now can’t go, but are unaware of the resale rules (which state that tickets can only be transferred to another named person with FIFA’s permission). And some will be outright fraudulent: the tickets are forgeries or don’t exist at all.
The end result for the ardent fan is the same: they risk flying themselves to South Africa at great expense only to find they are refused permission to the stadium. Read the rest of this entry »
