The Spam Omelette #32

Bogdan Botezatu

July 01, 2009

Week in Review:  June 24 – July 1

 

1. Unsubscribing
from spam is tough business

This week’s top word
in the spam landscape is UNSUBSCRIBE, a term that has shown up in our previous
reports, but never managed to claim the first place before. The word’s mere
presence in the top  reveals that spam
messages impersonating legit newsletters are a growing trend. According to the
BitDefender spam researchers, 59 percent of the worldwide spam is made of
forged newsletters featuring a medicine-related image and pointing to a .cn
domain.

 

2. Hot
OFFERS for your inbox

Ranking second in this
week’s issue of the Spam Omelette, the word OFFERS has been detected in
messages coming from Canadian Pharmacy. This particular spam wave impersonates
newsletters sent by MSN in the MSN Featured Offers program, but it has been
rigged with an image advertising Canadian Pharmacy products.

 

3. MSN –
Corporate impersonation in spam

As described above,
Microsoft’s MSN brand ranks third in this week’s spam top. The word mostly
occurs in forged newsletters rigged with image medicine advertisements.
Canadian Pharmacy is not only abusing the MSN brand, but also advertises their
products as genuine Pfizer (the legal owner of the Viagra and Cialis brands).
As usually, these fake newsletters come with an image pointed to a Chinese
domain composed of six random letters.

 

 

4. Job
offerings flooding EMAIL inboxes

Ranking fourth in this
week’s spam top, the word EMAIL has been identified in a less-common spam wave
advertising job offers. Coming at a time when most of the employers have ceased
recruitments on account of the global crisis, the spam message offers na

Bogdan Botezatu

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