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The Spam Omelette #37 – Acai Berry spam ramping up

Welcome to the Spam Omelette, BitDefender’s weekly newsletter on the latest spam trends and techniques. In order to accurately draw the spam chart, we analyze about 7 million spam messages. In case you missed our previous reports, please have a look on our testing methodology before reading any further.

Week in review: August 05 - 12

1. Western Union fraudsters say PLEASE

Ranking first in this week's spam top, the word PLEASE has been identified in a spam wave abusing the Western Union trademark. Disguised as a transaction warning related to a huge amount of money (1,000,000 pounds), the message advises unwary users to either call a number located in UK or to drop a mail to an address set up on Yahoo Mail. Either way, scammers would ask the user to deposit a certain amount of money as insurance for the payment. Once the money is transferred, you'll never hear from these guys ever again.

2. E-MAIL and EMAIL going hand in hand

The words e-mail and email have been identified by the BitDefender spam researchers mostly in messages coming from world's number one spammer, the Canadian Pharmacy online business. Most of the mails use HTML templates ripped from legit newsletters and modified to fit a central image with the current offering. The wide range of message subjects used in such messages is meant to increase users'curiosity and make them open the message and accept to see the (possibly) blocked image.

3. Click here if you dare

Ranking third in this week's issue of the Spam Omelette, the word CLICK has been identified mostly in messages advertising sexual enhancements from Canadian Pharmacy.  This batch of unsolicited mail is using a standard MSN newsletter template with unsubscribe and privacy policy links, as well as the possibility to view the newsletter as a web page, should your email client block pictures in it.

 

 

4. UNSUBSCRIBE links that actually work  

When it comes to spam, there is usually no way to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Instead, when clicking on the unsubscribe link, users are redirected to the advertised website. Well, this is not the case with Poker Savvy, the online casino we have talked about in our previous issues of the Spam Omelette. Given the fact that they use the services of email marketing company Bronto.com, they have been finally forced to include a valid unsubscribe link in the message footer. Much to your surprise, you'll probably be added later to the spam database, but at least the unsubscribe feature works for the moment.

 

 

5.  Acai Berry pills spam ramping up

Spotted on the spam map since last week, Acai Berry spam seems to keep invading users'inboxes at an accelerated pace. Advertised as a natural weight loss solution, these pills are available for ordering exclusively via web. In order to gain users'confidence, spammers are abusing celebrity names such as Oprah Winfrey.