Mar
25
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SPAM REVIEW
The Spam Omelette #19
25 March 2009
Welcome to this week’s issue of the Spam Omelette, BitDefender’s report on spam trends and techniques. If you happen to have joined later our newsletter, please do have a look on our testing methodology and spam map generation procedures before proceeding with today’s article.
Ranking second in our weekly top, the word please has been mostly encountered in advance-fee fraud messages. This week’s Nigerian scammer is Miss Helen Watara. She tells the same sad story of a 22-year old orphan who inherited a fabulous fortune but needs assistance in transferring funds from one account to another. We keep advising users not to reply such messages, as revealing any details may pose a high risk of identity theft and / or credit card fraud. 
Ranking fourth, the word LOVE has been identified in spam messages promoting sexual enhancements provided by various online medicine shops. The mentioned spam campaigns link to Chinese domains, but most of them have been suspended for abuse.
Ranking last in our weekly top, the word NEW has been identified by the BitDefender spam analysts in unsolicited messages advertising a wide range of prescription-based drugs. This spam wave uses quite a choice of mail subjects in order to raise recipients’ curiosity and open the message.
Medicine spam keeps flooding users’ inboxes at an alarming pace. Although the PowerGain+ medicine business reduced its amount of pumped spam for this week, more and more independent similar businesses keep sending unsolicited messages.
RELATED INFO:
SPAM REVIEW
1. EMAIL, back as number one
The word EMAIL strikes back as number one after only one week of absence. The BitDefender’spam analysts identified the word spelled both as EMAIL and E-mail in multiple spam waves advertising especially sexual enhancements as well as “marketing services”.
Spelled as EMAIL, the word has been identified in spam messages promoting the infamous Canadian Pharmacy products. Unlike last week’s spam waves, the new messages are using a new template with two images and multiple links to clones of the Canadian Pharmacy website.
The second spam wave abusing the word E-Mail actually tries to advertise spam services. This type of service is becoming increasingly popular, as “online marketing” campaigns are not only efficient, but also cheap.
According to the message, spammers offer both the necessary email databases with the upcoming victims, but also the equipment for mass-sending the customers’ messages.
2. PLEASE, let me give you some money
Ranking second in our weekly top, the word please has been mostly encountered in advance-fee fraud messages. This week’s Nigerian scammer is Miss Helen Watara. She tells the same sad story of a 22-year old orphan who inherited a fabulous fortune but needs assistance in transferring funds from one account to another. We keep advising users not to reply such messages, as revealing any details may pose a high risk of identity theft and / or credit card fraud.
3. Click here for some high-quality Viagra
The word click has been identified especially in messages promoting “cheap Viagra”. Interesting enough, this spam campaign is not affiliated with either Canadian Pharmacy or Powergain+, as expected. More than that, this specific spam wave is particularly interesting because it contains the word VIAGRA drawn using a HTML table as grid.
4. LOVE is in the air… and in the inbox, too
Ranking fourth, the word LOVE has been identified in spam messages promoting sexual enhancements provided by various online medicine shops. The mentioned spam campaigns link to Chinese domains, but most of them have been suspended for abuse.
5. NEW medicine spam this spring only
Ranking last in our weekly top, the word NEW has been identified by the BitDefender spam analysts in unsolicited messages advertising a wide range of prescription-based drugs. This spam wave uses quite a choice of mail subjects in order to raise recipients’ curiosity and open the message.
More than that, the message claims to come from the FDA itself, the US authority for Food and Drug Administration, which is totally misleading, as these drugs haven’t probably passed the FDA approval.
What’s new in the spam landscape?
Medicine spam keeps flooding users’ inboxes at an alarming pace. Although the PowerGain+ medicine business reduced its amount of pumped spam for this week, more and more independent similar businesses keep sending unsolicited messages.
RELATED INFO:
SPAM REVIEW
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Teo said on Mar-25-2009 16:39