The King of Spam Gets Personal
A few months ago, the King of Spam took a hit in the cojones, and in an effort to strike back, the beloved Inbox molester is attacking end-users on a personal level.
Within the last few weeks, consumers have discovered that Spam King minions have kicked in full gear, tossing out junk emails like heat-seeking missiles and steadily getting better with aim. Lately consumers have noticed that many of these electronic nuisances seem more personalized, flowing into email clients bearing their actual email addresses or bearing some type of familiar, personal information. Their tailor-made messages - a method called spear-phishing - are coming in at an alarming rate, attacking personal and business accounts alike, and shows no sign of easing up.
"Spear-phishing measures currently represent about one percent of all phishing campaigns, but are expected to become more prevalent," reports Cisco Systems in its 2008 Annual Security Report. "This trend bears close monitoring, because the attacks are becoming more sophisticated: Criminals are investing the time and resources in personalizing spam and making the messages seem credible. Why? Because jackpots are higher when they succeed in obtaining sensitive personal data from specially targeted, attractive victims."
According to the company, the typical spear-phishing attack consists of four steps:
(1) Obtain a specialized distribution of valid email addresses, either by launching malware, hacking into networks or actual purchasing the lists;
(2) Register a domain and build a fake-but legitimate looking website that will receive the email-directed recipients;
(3) Send phishing emails to the distribution list;
(4) Receive the collected data, such as login or other account details, and steal funds and/or data once they access the website.
While most consumers use some type of spam protection (usually embedded in security suites or antivirus software), most of these messages slip under the radar undetected, thus escaping the fiery pits of Spam Folder hell. Cisco also reports that currently 90 percent of all emails sent worldwide - roughly 200 billion messages per day - are defined as spam. This number has nearly doubled since 2007, representing 200 spam emails per day for every Internet user on the planet. In real-world numbers, that's quite a lot of money Uncle Sam will never see since these messages don't require stamps.
Consumers should keep aware that not all spam remains within the Internet realm; some find their way onto cell phones via SMS. Cisco highlights several spear-phishing campaigns, including SMS messages sent from the same area code, emails from the consumers current or prior university (whether as a student, faculty or alumni), Google Adwords account messages wanting login credentials, and messages targeting specific top executives called "whaling," usually reporting that there's a problem with their personal bank account, or that their business is currently under FBI investigation.
"The spam that does ultimately make it into recipients inboxes is becoming ever more dangerous and attractive, and thus likely to be opened," says the company in the report. "Newer spam campaigns typically include "blended threat" spam messages, which incorporate URLs to entice recipients to click through to malware-distributing or phishing websites."
Of course, religious fanatics will probably shout scripture from Revelations; many believe that Satan controls the Internet, and the enticing spam flooding inboxes is just another means of temptation. And while skeptics may reject the idea of an evil entity attacking faithful souls though Internet messaging, consumers should consider the future, consider what lies ahead in 2009 in regards to security and financial stability. Consumers should stay alert and question each incoming message.
Granted the Spam King is probably the Anti-Christ in disguise, the only way to defeat the evil beast is for Uncle Sam to step in, and charge consumers for every email sent - an electronic stamp. Then again, Sam sounds like Spam, so its quite possible that the government is behind it all, looking for a way to repay the now-dried-up Social Security fund.
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step 1: if you dont know the email address or didnt expect an email delete it.
step 1: if you dont know the email address or didnt expect an email delete it.
/sarcasm on
But, if I get emails from people that means I'm liked, right?
And if they took the time to email me, it must be important or something I'll like!
/sarcasm off
Well someone is buying into what he spams out...find said person(s) and smack 'em upside the head. Or, a less physical solution would be just to unplug said person's internet for 6-months to a year.
There are people that use their real information online?
I know when I'm addressed as "Hugo" in an e-mail that it's spam.
Having worked tech support for a few different major OEM's you wouldnt believe the stupid things people do. I always loved the calls where people would say they got a pop up that told them they had a virus.. Then it asked for their credit card number to fix it.. And after they put in the number, the problem still didnt go away.. I consider it a crime that I had to actually help that person.. I could see this same lady answering and replying with her cc info to every single email she ever receives in her entire life.
Why can't they stop spam? It's so easy... Just cut Russia, Nigeria and China from internet and 90% of criminal internet activities will stop. To stop spam, just buy the senderID patent from Micro$oft and use it in every email service, and centralize all the SMTP service on several servers, like DNS and the TLDs. I don't see why this can't be possible? 99% of emails are SPAM, more than 50% of the internet traffic is P2P... what this 1% of real email messages are in bandwidth compared to that...
religious fanatics will probably shout scripture -
What in the world are you talking about and how is this worth sticking in?
Hey Tom's. Not cool with the religious deal. it would be appropriate to strike it. buts thats just my opinion not the news.
Back off there huh and thehunted, those religious comments are like any other, opinion, perfectly acceptable to all but the zealots; like yourselves apparently. No need to act like the muslims here and get offended at everything. God is no greater than any other idea, except in your puny heads.
First off, spammers and virus/trojan creators should be shot. They cause untold hours of lost productivity and misery. I would not care one bit if their fat, pimply double-chinned heads were lopped off and set on a pike in front of Cisco's offices.
On another note, this stupid little dig at religion is a total non-sequiter. Where the hell do you get the idea that "religious fanatics" think spammers are out to get them? Spammers are out to get people with small pen ises and gullible idiots. And what do you consider a religious fanatic? The devout Christian that goes to church on Sundays and helps his neighbor? I'm sure you don't mean the actual religious fanatic muslim wearing the suicide vest - God forbid you actually criticize the real evil villains in the world. You might get your head lopped off. But Christians are easy targets cause they are taught not to fight back.
I like the idea of charging for an e-stamp. 1 cent to send an e-mail would put a serious damper to the spam tidal wave, and not really affect anyone adversely
Death penalty to Spammers.
Also, important, personal mail should be sent like this: Using a system similar to captcha, the receiving server should initiate a human verification process, asking the sender a question of some sort. Such processed mail should immediately be taken to genuine message folder, as opposed to normal incoming mail folder. This way, I can make sure my important, personal, and sometimes business related mail ends up in the right place. Why is this so god damn hard to implement?
Pay for sending emails? And just who would receive that money?
One of the dumbest things I've heard today.
The person who gets the mail gets the 1c !!!
When I began my College Searching I created 3 different Email accounts, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo. all 3 for use with Colleges & University's. I made notes as to which College/University i used the address for & i also checked it daily. All 3 where used for nothing else, & all 3 began to get Spammed out the arse! Now that I have learned that even Colleges are into the Spamming crap & giving out personal information makes you wonder about this country.
Having worked tech support for a few different major OEM's you wouldnt believe the stupid things people do. I always loved the calls where people would say they got a pop up that told them they had a virus.. Then it asked for their credit card number to fix it.. And after they put in the number, the problem still didnt go away.. I consider it a crime that I had to actually help that person.. I could see this same lady answering and replying with her cc info to every single email she ever receives in her entire life.
What you fail to realize is, that people not familiar with this technology (computers) won't be able to distinquish between the antivirius and an imposter in an internet explorer window. On top of that most elderly, which incidently are often not familiar as stated above, are too naive to think someone wants them anything bad. They aren't used to this disgusting world we live in, and couldn't possible think it was attempted thieft.
Working with enduser support myself, I too am astounded by the lack of knowledge some people have. But they are simply knowledable in other fields where I possibly am not. So don't blame the user for not knowing better. If you're past 30, chances are you don't care much about computers other than for internet browsing - and then you won't nessecarily be able to tell the difference between real and fake mails, warnings etc.