Spammers’ Latest is the Hijacked Newsletter Spam, Says Commtouch

Commtouch has released statistics detailing the most prevalent spam trends during the first three months of 2007. Spam via hijacked newsletter is the most recent trend, indicates Commtouch's Spam Trends Report.

In the war between companies and spammers, the latter seems to come out the winner, according to Commtouch's latest report. In the first quarter of 2007, about 85-95% of e-mail messages circulating were spam. Computers around the world are getting converted into zombies rapidly. They have spread in 100 or more countries. Smallcap published this in news on April 20, 2007. Top spam includes sexual enhancer products and pump-and-dump stock scams.

However, the most recent damage that is capable of bypassing anti-spam programs is the newsletter spam, according to Amir Lev, president of Commtouch in news that Theinquirer published on April 18, 2007. The hijacked newsletter spam arrives in disguise of legitimate mass messages i.e., e-mail newsletters and have been effectively evading anti spam filters.

Spammers send a hijacked newsletter in an e-mail newsletter's form and embed a spam graphic in the message's opening portion. This trick with the graphic helps the message to pierce through the anti spam filters that recognize only text. Dmnews published this in news on April 21, 2007.

The hijacked newsletter scam is another technique that spammers have developed to get past conventional anti-spam products, president and CTO for Commtouch, Sunnyvale, CA, Amir Lev said. The rate and speed at which spammers are innovating techniques makes fight against spam on trick-open-trick basis, futile. Sooner, as conventional anti-spam programs find place to catch the latest strategy, spammers come up with something new and again flood mailboxes. Dmnews published this on April 21, 2007.

Lev confirmed what everyone already knew by saying that huge botnets remain the principal force behind the maximum numbers of global spam. Theinquirer published this on April 18, 2007.

Spam inundates botnets leading to generation of solutions that try to locate spam through scanning content in each message. To effectively protect against spam, dynamic blocking is necessary at network area, Mr. Lev said in news that Dmnews published on April 21, 2007.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 4/30/2007