What\u2019s it like to work with spam? No, not spamming out everything you\u2019ve got, but vice versa. What\u2019s it like to find ways of not letting spam through?<\/p>\n
Academically, it must be quite an exciting study, possibly not unlike entomology (although actual spam analysts may disagree with such a comparison). Why would businesses care about the spam and its trends? On the surface, it\u2019s about knowing the spammers\u2019 tricks, those who do their best to attract undeserved attention to the advertised offers. On the darker side, spam is also used to spread malware and phishing letters. So, knowing spam is knowing thine enemy. Sort of.<\/p>\n
We have a Q3 spam report by Kaspersky Lab. So let\u2019s take a look.<\/p>\n
Spam and Phishing in Q3: Dirty Summer Tricks #spam #q3<\/p>Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote>\n
Summer moved on<\/strong><\/p>\n
The first highlight is that spam levels have moved upwards. Very slightly, though, just 0.8% up from the average percentage of the previous quarter (currently it\u2019s 54.2% in the overall email traffic). It was predictable, as vacation season effectively ends in Q3, and spammers tend to leverage this.<\/p>\n
This was actually observed: Exploiting the summer holiday season, fake notifications from booking services, airlines, and hotels were used to spread malicious programs such as Trojan-Downloader.JS.Agent.hhy, disguised as a flight e-ticket or hotel reservation.<\/p>\n
Another type of spam email offered a selection of brides (mainly from Russia and Ukraine) to foreign suitors. After replying, targets were sent further spam emails as some \u201cbrides\u201d asked for money to visit their \u201csuitors\u201d.<\/p>\n
There was also \u201cthe sheer variety\u201d of dating-themed spam in Q3 \u2013 all kinds of dating\/marriage\/adult sites were spamvertised, as well as a (sort of) new type of spam, blatantly fraudulent. A mass mailing was observed that prompted recipients to send a text message to a specific telephone number \u2013 in return a girl promised to send intimate photos of herself. A little bit of checking showed that this was a robot doling out a mobile malware on the other end.<\/p>\n