Blog for Antispam and Content Filtering Observations: Spammers Adjust To Economic Times

Monday, April 06, 2009

Spammers Adjust To Economic Times

Numbers. So much of the spam world is numbers.

IP address… numbers
Volume of spam email … numbers
Money lost due to scams… numbers

Behind every number is a person: A spammer running a rogue email server or a person opening an email. And with this simple act of opening an email, they fall prey to ID theft, malware installation and possibly an emptier bank account.

Spam emails with monetary themes are reported to be on the upswing and why not. Falling stock values, job losses and bailouts are top-of-mind for just about everyone. Newspapers hammer this theme home. CNBC parades a steady stream of analysts all predicting or not predicting “The Bottom”. The talk among parents waiting to pick up our darling children at my kids school, often centers around who lost their jobs this week. Bailout this. Don’t bailout that. Top-of-mind.

So is it any surprise the spammers have moved from pushing offshore drug distributors to pushing economic solutions.

A five minute search of my own quarantine folder brought these “economic” related subjects to the forefront…

Save Money on your Credit Card
Attention: Union Trust Bank Customer
Behind on House Payments? Load Modification
Stay at Home Mom Makes How Much?

And guess what? In the same search period, not a single email for cheap offshore drugs or Viagra knock-offs, not a single email. A total and complete retargeting (or rebranding) of spammer resources.

And since my personal interest lies in international spam (thanks to my company’s XE-Filter product designed specifically for international spam email), I want to bring up this little nugget from the “Emirates Business 24/7” web site…

"Spam is also getting globalised as Brazil, Russia, India and China are among the biggest emerging broadband markets worldwide and as such offer a tremendous opportunity for cybercrime ".

Kind of hits right in the heart of my company's demographic. Do your company a favor… check XE-Filter out.

Thanks

AAS

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