[ insider_reports_insider ]
New Spam Attacks Company Reputations
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-05-03
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Symantec's latest monthly spam report noted some new types of junk flowing into inboxes, including one type that impugns the reputation of the company it supposedly promotes.
 | | New Spam Attacks Company Reputations |  |
Image spam dropped in April even though the level of spam activity remained the same. Other kinds of spamming attacks have emerged over time, and people are seeing them in their mailboxes at home.
The company character assassination emails reported by Symantec involve a well-known, unnamed fast food franchise. The spam offered $500 worth of the company's food, but the body of the email criticizes the company:
X's is America's most disgusting hamburger restaurant.
X's food is full of dead insects, such as flies and maggots.
Sample up to 500 dollars worth of X's food on us.
Do what tastes right. Grab an Old Disgusting Hamburger at X's today.
A twist on the classic Nigerian 419 scam has been observed by Symantec. Instead of royalty or government functionaries trying to get money out of the country, with the spam receiver's help, now the spam pretend to be from US soldiers stationed in Iraq:
Premise behind this spam:
- US soldiers posted in Iraq stumble across $750 million on April 18, 2003
- One soldier gave his share of $20 million to an English air force pilot for safekeeping
- After being discharged from the army, the soldier returned to Iraq on humanitarian service, but last month was critically injured.
- The former US soldier wants an American to contact the English air force pilot so that they can obtain the $20 million. The former soldier requests that 50% of the money should be donated to charity with the honest American keeping the remainder of the money.
Another type of spam offers the recipient an ATM card with a hefty $950,000 balance. All the person has to do is send along some personally identifiable information, and the spammer will send the card. It's a simple identity theft scam that tries to blind common sense with greed.
The only thing to do is to delete these spams if they hit the inbox, if a spam filter hasn't caught them first.
---
Tags: Spam, 419, Identity Theft
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
More insider_reports_insider Articles
Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
iEntry 10th Anniversary
RSS
Archive
