Picture this: A sneakier kind of spam Posted 7/23/2006 10:44 PM ET
By Jon Swartz USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2006-07-23-sneaky-spam_x.htm SAN FRANCISCO A new strain of spam popping up in e-mail boxes is confounding consumers and corporate security officials. The spam contains images spouting everything from stock scams to Viagra, and its volume has more than doubled since April, according to analysis by anti-spam vendor IronPort Systems. Image-based spam accounts for 21% of all spam, compared with just 1% in late 2005, IronPort says. Marketers are deploying image-based spam because it is harder to detect than text-based spam, and consumers are more likely to read an e-mail with a picture or graphic, says Craig Sprosts of IronPort. The newest spam uses technology that varies the content of individual messages through colors, backgrounds, picture sizes or font types so they appear to be distinct to spam filters. The spam is delivered to consumers and companies through millions of compromised PCs, called bots. As a result, the messages are like snowflakes: No two are alike, says Julian Haight, founder of anti-spam organization SpamCop. The surge in new spam has largely eluded software filters and eaten up space on e-mail systems because each message is more than seven times larger than regular spam, Sprosts says. Most image-based spam comes in the form of stock scams, which contain the same basic language within a shaded box. Much of it comes from spam gangs in the USA and Russia, Sprosts says. Stock scams make up about 20% of spam about twice the share at the start of the year, IronPort says. Until last year, image spam was rare. Though it had been around for about four years, spammers lacked the technology to randomize images, says Dmitri Alperovitch of e-mail security company CipherTrust. Before, spammers included a link on e-mail spam to direct recipients to a site containing pictures. Not anymore. The new spamming tactic is the latest salvo in the battle between junk e-mailers and filter developers. As software gets better at identifying and blocking spam, spammers get smarter at outfoxing software. "It is a never-ending cat-and-mouse game," Alperovitch says. Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2006-07-23-sneaky-spam_x.htm ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
