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The Spam Omelette #52 -On Chinese Job Offers and Canadian Lottery

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 reading any further.

Week in Review: November 19 - 26

1. How not to UNSUBSCRIBE from spam

Ranking first in this week's spam top, the word UNSUBSCRIBE has been detected especially in unsolicited messages coming from Canadian Pharmacy. The spammers stick to the same old trick of modifying legit newsletter templates to display their offerings in a central picture. They also leave the footer disclaimer with unsubscribe and contact links, but modify their destination to the advertised webpage.

As a rule of thumb, never click on links in spam messages because they may take you to malicious webpages or even confirm that the target inbox is being operated by a human user.

2. Chinese spammers are BACK

Rankinbg second in this week's spam top, the word BACK has been spotted mostly in messages promoting the services of a China-based webdesign and graphics company. Once again, spammers rely on the benefits of "e-mail marketing" strategies to boost their revenue even in a time of economic downturn.

3. Visit the Canadian Lottery draw SITE

The word SITE ranks third in this week's issue of the Spam Omelette and has been detected by BitDefender's spam researchers in a medium-size spam wave announcing the victims that they have won one million US dollars from the Canadian Lottery. In order to be eligible for the money, the user has, however, to send their private information to an untraceable e-mail address and, of course, to deposit a processing fee to a specified bank account. This is one of the many versions of advance-fee fraud schemes circulating on the web. Please remember: if something sounds too good to be true, chances are that it is.

4. Need PILLS? Visit us!

Medicine spam witnessed a slight decrease as compared to the first half of the year. However, it is still one of the most active breeds of spam with Canadian Pharmacy as featured player. The word PILLS has been identified in messages advertising sexual enhancement drugs, but presented as anti-acne creams.

5. Click-And-Download Cracked Software

The word CLICK ranks last in this week's spam top and has been spotted especially in messages promoting click-and-download OEM software. However, as the users pay for the software (which is extremely illegal, given the fact that OEM software can not be sold without an additional hardware component), they realize that they have purchased pirated, torrent-downloaded applications.