Security Pundits say that Spam Becomes 20 years Old and Still Going Strong

Ibtimes.co.uk reported in the last week of April 2014 quoting a warning by security experts as "commercial Internet spam emails become 20 years old with its birthday as 12th April, 1994 and technical advances have made them worse."

There was a time when spam emails consisted merely marketing mails which users did not want but now spam emails are used to sell illegal products like knock-off prescriptions or drugs for sexual enhancement along with those Nigerian princes who want to give you money in exchange for sensitive information.

There are phishing emails containing links to fake login pages to trick user in giving away login details regarding online banking accounts or leading to a malicious website which installs malware on the user's computer.

These phishing emails are usually sent out from groups of infected computers known as botnets aiming to reach maximum possible email accounts. Actually, these can compromise the whole systems of the user's employer causing far-reaching serious consequences besides affecting individual computer.

According to Kaspersky Lab, it is interesting that commercial spam is the day that a "Green Card Lawyers" solicitation was sent to more than 6,000 Usenet newsgroups across the web.

These days, most of us may think of only emails when talking about spam but there's plenty of spam on social networks and other kind of online marketing also. Fighting spam email is never-ending game like cat and mouse including changing spam filter settings, blacklisting and white-listing domains, deleting emails from Inbox, etc.

The scourge of spam has led users to use alternative forms of communication but spammers have followed there also. There are millions and tens of thousands of people using Instant messaging, social networking, SMS text messages and you can be sure about spammers exploiting these too.

Pcworld.com published news on 21st April, 2014 quoting Kaspersky Labs as "It would be better for your own protection if you don't open any file attachments and don't click on links. Always delete all unsolicited messages without even opening these. If most of us do these, we may stick a fork in spam once for all."

» SPAMfighter News - 5/15/2014