Spammers to Increasingly Abuse Free Blogging Sites in 2009

As per "January Spam Report" published by McAfee for January 2009, the current year is expected to keep the spammers occupied. Cyber crooks are likely to increase the exploitation of free blogging and webhosting sites for which the domain names are not required to be purchased.

McAfee has claimed that the spammers will try to make best of the five-day grace period offered by ICANN, during which a user may register a domain name and return it within five days for full refund. spammers are abusing this policy, dubbed as 'domain tasting', to get thousands of domains registered everyday for fulfilling their illegal intentions within the trial period. However, ICANN has reported of fewer daily registrations of malevolent domains, but the exploitation is still going on.

The report suggests that the spammers have been increasingly exploiting current news and events to make their phishing assaults highly effective. For instance, spamming scams related to the US Presidential elections and the increasing unemployment in America due to financial turmoil ruled the scenario in 2008 and such incidents are expected to increase as 2009 moves ahead.

Malware and viruses embedded in e-cards as well as credit spams related to holiday shopping have also been discussed in the report.

Continuing the trend, tax season of 2009 will also witness the increase in tax scams, in which "spear phishing" technique is employed to create apparently professional corporate firms to steal the financial details of tax payers, as per the report.

According to Jeff Green, Senior Vice President at McAfee Avert Labs, spammers have become smarter and are always ready to tailor their techniques. With the increasing unemployment or self employment in the current year, people should be highly cautious of do-it-yourself kits and any financial query purportedly coming from legitimate financial or educational institutes, reports SCMAGAZINE on January 12, 2009.

Consequently, the company has recommended both users and businesses to keep their security software up-to-date so as to obstruct the spamming assaults. McAfee has also suggested the firms to use anti-malware detection technology and thereby, stepping ahead of their counterparts by acquiring protection from prevailing as well as new variations of cyber threats.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 1/23/2009