[ insider_reports_insider ]
Acai Spam Inspires Tightened Filters More Than Tightened Belts
SecurityProNews
Staff Writer
2009-05-18
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
If there's one thing that's a guaranteed moneymaker, it's the promise of weight loss-it's almost as popular as cheeseburgers. Marketers and scammers of all stripes know this, including spammers. As bikini season rapidly approaches (yay!), the security conscious might want to tighten their filters.
 | | Acai Spam Inspires Tightened Filters More Than Tightened Belts |  |
The miracle dietary supplement du jour is acai, a South American berry extract said to fight the Big C cancer and the Little C cellulite. While as usual the FDA disavows it since there's no reason not to ingest it and actually studying it and other supplements might actually benefit somebody by saving them $50, it's perfectly acceptable to market it as a superfood happy pill so long as it carries the proper disclaimer that all claims made may or many not be bullbutter.
Crikey, that was a long sentence. Sorry about that. On with it, then.
Symantec's MessageLabs is sending out the warning that acai flavored spam-they're adding it to ice cream and liquor, so why not?-is currently punishing inboxes. Originating from the Cutwail botnet, acai spam has maintained an average level of five percent of all spam. But due to expected seasonably acceptable semi-nudity (again, yay!), acai spam spiked to ten percent of all spam over the past couple of months.
"Pushing dietary supplements is an age-old spamming tactic," said Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Symantec, "but this latest run puts a new spin on these familiar spam messages as the bad guys capitalize on seasonality and a hot trend in nutrition."
All roads lead to Rome, but a great many IP addresses lead to Russia. In the case of Cutwail-originating-acai-spam, one line of text is followed by many leading to the same Russian website. Following any one of them leads the gullible to the site and enables javascript, which runs a five-minute timer. After five minutes, the acai-entranced finds himself/herself in a chat session sales pitch.
Oh, you were expecting a virus or maybe some phishing? Well, only if giving your credit card details to an unknown spambot-employing Russian counts as phishing-and I think it might.
About the Author:
SecurityProNews is a daily online and email publication focusing on internet security issues.
More insider_reports_insider Articles
Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
iEntry 10th Anniversary
RSS
Archive
