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Posted on 04.06.07 by Admin @ 9:32 pm
Spam will continue spreading as far as it makes profit. If nobody buys from spammers or acts upon their scams, spam will end. This is the obvious and easiest way to fight spam. You can ignore and delete spam emails you receive. But you can also take vengeance on the spammer by complaining to the spammer’s Internet Service Provider (ISP). The ISP will block their connection and maybe impose a fine (depending on the ISP’s acceptable usage policy). Spammers beware of such complaints and try to disguise their messages. That’s why finding the right ISP is not always easy. Let’s look inside a spam message. Every email message includes two parts, the body and the header. The body is the actual message text and attachments. The header is a kind of the envelope of the message. The header shows the address of the message sender, the address of the message recipient, the message subject and other information. Email programs usually display these header fields: From: shows the sender’s name and email address. The From: field usually contains the sender’s email address. This lets you know who sent the message and allows you easily reply. Spammers, of course, don’t want you to reply and don’t want you to know who they are. Therefore, they put forged email addresses into the From: lines of their emails. So the From: field won’t help you if you want to determine where the spam email comes from. Tip! With G-Lock SpamCombat you can easily preview not only the message text but also all the fields of the message header . You can choose the preview format by yourself. You can view the message as HTML, decoded message, or message source.There are also several Received: fields in the header of every message. Email programs don’t usually display the Received: lines but the Received: lines can be very helpful in tracing the spam origin. Just like a postal letter goes through a number of post offices before it’s delivered to the recipient, an email message is processed by several mail servers. Each mail server adds a line to the message header – a Received: line – which contains - the server name and IP address of the machine the server received the message from and Each Received: line is inserted at the top of the message header. If we want to reproduce the message’s path from sender to recipient, we start from the topmost Received: line and walk down until the last one, which is where the email originated. Just like the From: field the Received: lines may contain forged information to fool those who would want to trace the spammer. Because every mail server inserts the Received: line at the top of the header, we start the analysis from the top. The Received: lines forged by spammers usually look like normal Received: fields. We can hardly tell whether the Received: line is forged or not at first sight. We should analyze all the Received: lines chain to find out a forged Received: field. As we mentioned above, every mail server registers not only its name but also the IP address of the machine it got the message from. We simply need to look what name a server puts and what the next server in the chain says. If the servers don’t match, the earlier Received: line is forged. The origin of the email is what the server immediately after the forged Received: line says about where it received the message from. Let’s see how determining of the spam email origin works in real life. Here is the header of a spam message we’ve recently received: ************************************************** Reply-To: umceqhzjmndfy At first, look at the forged From: field. The email address in the From: and Reply-To: lines doesn’t exist. So, the spammer took care about directing bounced messages and all the indignant replies people may send to a non-existing email account. Secondly, the Subject: line. It contains the variations of the “Meds” and “Viagra” words that are known to be met in spam messages. Plus, the subject contains a range of random characters. It’s obvious that the subject line is skillfully tailored to fool anti-spam filters. Lastly, let’s analyze the Received: lines. We start from the oldest one - Received: from 164.145.240.209 by 60.17.139.96; Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:53:35 -0500. There are two IP addresses in it: 60.17.139.96 says it received the message from 164.145.240.209. We check if the next (and last in this case) mail server in the chain confirms the state of the first Received: line. In the second Received: field we have: Received: from unknown (HELO 60.17.139.96) (221.200.13.158) by mail1.myserver.xx with SMTP; 7 Nov 2006 10:54:16 -0000. mail1.myserver.xx is our server and we can trust it. It received the message from an “unknown” host, which says it has the IP address 60.17.139.96. Yes, this confirms what the previous Received: line says. Now let’s find out where our mail server got the message from. For this purpose, we look at the IP address in brackets before the server name mail1.myserver.xx. It is 221.200.13.15. This is the IP address the connection was established from, and it is not 60.17.139.96. The spam message originates from 221.200.13.15. It’s important to note that it’s not necessarily that the spammer is sitting at the computer 221.200.13.15 and sending spam over the world. It may happen the computer’s owner doesn’t even suspect of being sending spam. The computer may be hijacked by a Trojan, which is spreading spam without the machine’s owner knowing it. We hope this information will help you identify the spammer’s ISP and report them about spam so they can take proper measures. About The Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 04.06.07 by Admin @ 9:31 pm
All spam emails we receive every day in tens or hundreds are annoying and disgusting. But the worst of them are scams, hoaxes, and illegal schemes aimed at defrauding you of your money, private information, and even your life. Being aware of how the spam scams work you will be able to protect yourself against the spammers-fraudsters and not to become a victim of their fraudulent schemes. A lot of spam scams arrive in the form of a great investment offer. It usually works as a Pyramid scheme. Spammers ask you to pay money for a membership, goods, or simply to “invest” promising you much money as revenue. Your revenue will come from those people who will invest after you. Your investment is distributed to those who joined before you. At some point the pyramid ruins because there are not enough new investors to keep the money flowing. The spammer is at the top of the pyramid and he is the only one who benefits. The scan may not always look like an investment offer. The spammers can ask you to distribute some advertising letters to a list of email addresses, for remuneration. Although they will tell you that the list contains only opt-in email addresses, it’s not true, and you will be sending spam directly from your computer. Another fraudulent scheme you may meet looks like a letter coming from a company that you do business with. Usually the spammer asks you to follow a link within the message supposedly to update your account. But actually this is done to worm you out your personal and financial information. If you click on that link, you will be brought to a page that will look like a company’s web site. While you are logging in or filling the form in, the program is recording your keystrokes and all your private information – account number, user name, password, social security number – is disclosed. Never click on the links included in such emails. Just open a company’s web site in a separate window and check your account details out. Nigerian spam is one of the most dangerous email scams. The mechanism of the scam is simple. The spammer sends you a badly spelled letter on behalf of a government official, deposed ruler, or relative of a ruling family asking you for help. They have some goods, money, or jewels that they cannot access due to political reasons. They ask you to allow them transfer large sums of money into your bank account. They promise to remunerate you for your kindness, or even leave all money to you. Attractive offer, isn’t it? Don’t be a dolt, don’t believe them. They tempt you into a trap. Their object is to obtain your account number and bank transfer information. They also may ask you to send them a fee to bribe some corrupt government officials. Further you may receive additional officially looking letters where you will be asked to provide further documents, private information, and money. When they have “played” with you long enough, or believe that you may suspect to be led on, they will rob you and quite. Take care! Don’t react upon any spam message whatever tempting offer it contains. Delete it at once, or let an anti-spam filter delete all spam before you download it into your inbox. About The Author Filed under: News Comments: None |
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Posted on 04.06.07 by Admin @ 9:31 pm
Almost everyone who accesses the Internet and uses e-mail knows about spam. The common definition of spam is e-mail that is unsolicited, undesired by the recipient. Spam is sent out by automated programs to thousands or millions email addresses at a time. In most cases spam emails offer you different services, products (medicines, goods, software programs etc.), and “get rich quickly” plans. You can simply delete them if you receive several unsolicited emails per day. But if you get tens or hundreds spam messages every day, it is a real problem. In order to understand how to deal with spam in your inbox, let’s examine some core questions concerning spam: Why send spam? The right answer is to make money. If you have never opened a spam message, you should not think that others don’t do it either. Among thousands or millions people who receive spam you can always find one or several persons who actually purchase services or products the spammers advertise, or join the “get rich” schemes the spammers offer. Of course, they lose and the spammer wins. How do spammers obtain email addresses? Spammers use special software programs that search websites, forums, newsgroups and harvest posted email addresses. They can use computer viruses and spyware to steal the email addresses from personal address books. Spammers often purchase lists of email addresses from other spammers, or from some dishonest companies, which do not care about the privacy of their customers’ information. What danger lies behind spam? Never buy pharmaceutical drugs such as Valium, Viagra, Cialis, Anatrim, etc. advertised in spam emails. These medications are counterfeited for 99% and can be dangerous. Viruses - one of the most common computer security threats - can also be spread in spam emails. The worst thing is that viruses slip onto your computer without being noticed. You may think that you will download new free software when you click on a link within a spam message but actually you will get at least one virus infection - most probably a trojan virus. This type of virus can destroy data, steal your personal information such a user name, password, or just download other nasty software onto your computer that will cause more harm. A virus can hide itself in a picture, video or audio file. Certain anti-spam programs such as G-Lock SpamCombat let you preview the messages in a safe mode, i.e. they don’t allow any suspicious pictures to be downloaded nor malicious codes to be executed. A virus is a nuisance but phishing is a real danger. This type of spam is becoming very popular now. This is a method of tricking consumers with the purpose to worm them out of their personal information such as bank account numbers, passwords, user names, and credit card details. The spammers send a fraudulent email that usually appears to come from financial institutions like Ebay or Paypal saying that there is some trouble with your account and that you need to update it. There is a link within the message that you should follow to update the account details. The web site usually looks like a real company’s web site. But as soon as you start filling the presented form in, the program starts recording your keystrokes and your private details are now disclosed to the spammer. How to fight spam? It is prudent to use an anti-spam filter to block annoying, time consuming, and sometimes dangerous spam emails. Anti-spam software checks your incoming emails and immediately moves spam messages into a special trash folder. If you want a good internet security suite that includes a spam blocker, consider BitDefender Professional Plus, Kaspersky Internet Security, F-Secure Internet Security or eTrust Internet Security. For a standalone spam filtering program, look at McAfee Spam Killer, G-Lock SpamCombat, Spam Assassin, Mail Washer Pro or ZapASpam. About The Author Filed under: News Comments: None |
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Posted on 04.06.07 by Admin @ 9:30 pm
Almost everyone who used to communicate via e-mail has ever found in the Inbox the messages from people he doesn’t know proposing some services or products. All unsolicited and undesired messages you receive are SPAM. The emails of this kind usually offer pharmaceutical products, diet methods, sexual enhancements aid, and “get rich quick” plans. You can also meet bogus sales pitches, sales opportunities, and different types of scams. In addition to stock scams, in which spammers encourage you to invest money, a new spam-scam gambit called phishing is becoming very popular now. This scam is aimed to obtaining people’s private information such as user name, password, credit card details, etc. An example is an email coming from PayPal or Ebay asking you to go to the company’s web site and update your account. If you do it, the spammers will record your keystrokes and your private details will be disclosed to them. And have you ever received pitiful letters from a widow or a relative of the former ruler of Nigeria? Sure you have. It’s a famous Nigerian fraud that is still having a place on the Internet. Don’t be enticed by the millions they would promise you. All they want is your bank account details in order to rob you. How do you identify spam among legitimate messages? You usually look at the sender’s name, which may be unknown to you or contain some gibberish. You also read the subject line of the message. As a rule the subject line of spam emails concerns gambling, pornography, or an offer to make a fortune in 24 hours. But the spammers are also able to create an email identical to legitimate one coming from a respected source. In other cases, the subject lines may indicate that the message is a reply to your email. A general way to distinguish spam is to read the To and From header fields in all the messages you receive. If you see strange, anonymous or scrambled alpha-numeric email addresses (for example, gt4590xx@domain.com) then you have spam. Some anti-spam solutions provide you with the capability to preview the emails. For example, in addition to a safe message content preview, G-Lock SpamCombat allows you analyze the message header in detail: From, To, Subject, Received and other header fields. How to block spam? Remember, the point of spam is to have you open the email. Once you do it, the least trouble you may have is to let the spammer know that your email address is valid. It’s luck for a spammer. He can continue spamming you in the hope that earlier or later you will swallow the bait. Or, he can sell your email address to someone else. Also, be aware that spammers send millions emails at a time, so even a very tiny response rate is a great success for them. Let’s imagine that 100 out of 10 millions people invested 5 dollars each into a scam offered by a spammer. So, the spammer makes 500 dollars at a time. If you are really suffering from a continuous spam flow, you can consider getting a new email address and disclose it to trusted senders only. Or, you can start clearing your inbox from spam right away using anti-spam software. Although not perfect, anti-spam filters are now very sophisticated and very effective at cutting out most of spam. Anti-spam programs basically do one or more of the following things: 1. Check the senders’ email addresses and names against a blacklist of spammers they own and delete the message if the sender is on the blacklist. 2. Check the recipients’ email addresses and names and filter the messages according to certain parameters. For example, if the email is sent to a large group of recipients sorted alphabetically, the email is considered spam. 3. Analyze the message content and subject line and search for certain words or phrases, which are typically met in spam emails such as “Viagra”, “Cialis”, “Mortgage”, “Invest” and filter the spam email accordingly. There are many kinds of anti spam solutions now. Software developers offer standalone spam blockers like Mail Washer, Spam Nullifier, G-Lock SpamCombat, etc. Most of the big, free email services such as Yahoo!, Google, MSN, and Hotmail also provide effective spam filtering. You just need to choose the right anti-spam solution that will serve you in the most effective way. About The Author Filed under: News Comments: None |
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Posted on 04.06.07 by Admin @ 9:30 pm
The damage spam brings you is huge: loss of time, bandwidth and money, risk to delete a legitimate message together with junk emails. So, an anti-spam filter is not a whim but a necessity for almost all PC users who actively use email. What criteria should you follow to choose the right spam filtering program? What capabilities must an anti-spam tool have to filter and cut off spam mail in most effective way? Here are the main features a good anti-spam software must have to block spam effectively: 1) it should be a standalone spam filtering tool, which checks all incoming emails on the server, detects and deletes spam messages. 2) deletion of spam without receiving it in your inbox. This way you won’t download all the superfluous kilobytes into your inbox and you won’t see annoying spam mail. 3) powerful antispam filters built in one program that analyze the message from “outside” and “inside”: message header, message body, and message source. Flexible whitelist and blacklist easy to edit and update are also very useful as they help save much time when filtering emails. Good anti-spam software must also have the Bayesian filter in its arsenal of spam filtering tools. 4) easy and safe method to preview emails marked as spam. Inherent in antispam technology is the fact that there will be false positives and false negatives, i.e., email can be flagged as spam even though it is not actually spam and vice versa. 5) flexible spam filtering. Spam emails should be moved to a separate folder. A good spam filtering software should provide the ability to recover an email if it was accidentally marked as spam and trashed. Simply put, an anti-spam program must be a standalone, easy-to-use software supplied with powerful anti-spam filters able to be adjusted by every user for his personal needs. Now with all that said above you can choose the right anti-spam software among all spam filtering programs available on the Internet. About The Author Filed under: News Comments: None |
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External News Email Spam News News on Email Spam continually updated from thousands of sources around the net. Dealing with the Age of Spam Spam has been around for an age, but most recently the word spam has been a direct relation to unwanted emails on the internet, they have been slowly increasing since the development of the internet and now ... Revival of Spamalot Spam volume has been cut by more than half because Internet providers pulled the plug on McColo Corp., a Web hosting firm that was allegedly helping some of the world's most dastardly junk e-mail gangs. Overstock.com's Latest Gambit: Email Spams to Promote Its Wacky CEO The corporate fraud poster boy Overstock.com, having just reinstated in financial results going back to the time of Copernicus , has invested its scarce cash in a new but typically slimy tactic: email spams. |
