Fresh Spam Campaigns Involve Facebook - Themed Messages

According to the researchers at Avira, twin fresh spam runs are presently inundating the Internet, while pretending to be official messages that have been sent from Facebook.

Observes the company, the first spam run involves an e-mail wherein the spammers apply the familiar tactic of embedding malicious web-links to photographs.

Citing the attached picture, the e-mail tells the recipient that she looks wonderful in it. Thereafter, it (the message) asks if she'll continue the communication through e-mail. Alternatively if she can send an SMS, the sender enquires before bidding goodbye and wishing a joyful period.

However, the web-links embedded on the e-mails take users onto different sections on Facebook. But, the actual goal is a site which seemingly offers an SMS service for free.

In reality, though, nothing on the Internet comes for free. If the user doesn't require paying for an offer, the person making that offer i.e. the spammer does manage to receive something in return. And that could be the user's e-mail address, telephone number alternatively something similarly valuable online.

In the meantime, for the second spam run, the criminals employ the familiar tactic of sending Facebook notices. Web-users in this are diverted onto a Canadian Pharmacy site.

Nevertheless, these spurious electronic messages are most interesting in that they effectively dodge anti-spam filters.

Avira points out that the messages nearly every time show the same subject lines followed with separate servers that are most unrelated to Facebook. The company emphasizes that this method undoubtedly indicates that the source of the e-mails is a botnet.

Remarking about this aspect, Data Security Specialist Sorin Mustaca at Avira blogs that the subject lines of the e-mails display extremely good craftsmanship via the inclusion of plentiful entries due to which the messages appear as original Facebook e-mails. Techblog.avira.com reported this on September 17, 2010.

Thus, to remain safe from the current spam campaigns, experts recommend users that they must be always watchful and verify the source of each e-mail whether or not the message looks well constructed. In addition, they must deploy high-quality security programs, including anti-spam filters which are really effective.

Related article: Fark.com Files Suit against Suspected Hacker from Fox13

» SPAMfighter News - 9/30/2010