No. 1 Story

ACCC clears Optus to scrap HFC network and use NBN instead

The ACCC has cleared, provisionally, the proposed deal between Optus and NBN Co under which Optus is to be paid around $800m to shut down its HFC network and transfer customers onto the NBN. read more

Related Articles

Spammers, use, legit, websites, get, through
Russian hackers have used phishing techniques to get hundreds of customers of Sweden’s largest...
Spammers are trying destabilize global spam-reporting services by flooding them with automated false spam...
Illicit spammers are attempting to harness the enthusiasm of the Firefox community in their...
Playing at becoming your fantasy character online has proven to be an innovative and...
The US and China are vying for the title as the world's largest spamming...

Spammers use legit websites to get through

Business IT - Security

Last month saw an increase in spammers using legitimate websites as jump off points to avoid anti-spam defences. According to a new report, spammers put links on sites such as Yahoo! and Geocities, which when clicked on take unsuspecting users to spam sites.

According to the Clearswift September Spam Index, spammers are getting smarter and more sophisticated in sentence randomisation, moving away from random passages taken from novels or dictionary definitions, or more obvious ploys such as word obfuscation (seen in messages that advertise V1agra, Levitr@ or C!ialis). However, the old scams and spams appear to be dying out to replaced by newer breeds.

'They might look like the same old emails but spammers are making subtle changes to increase their chances of getting through blocking systems,' said Peter Croft, managing director Clearswift Asia Pacific.

While new spam techniques are making an appearance on the Spam Index, old ones are dying out.  The infamous Nigerian emails accounted for only 1% of all scams, and just under 0.1% of all spam.

'Nigeria's police operations against email fraudsters are likely to be a factor in this trend,' says Croft.  Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission reported in August 2005 that cash and assets worth more than $700 million have been recovered from suspects since 2003.

Online gambling spam decreased from 2.2% of the August total to 0.01%. Healthcare dropped by 9% from last month to make up only 32.5% of all unsolicited mail.

Spammers have also looked to capitalise on current affairs by sending emails claiming to be nationwide surveys on matters of public interest, such as 'Do you support the war in Iraq?'  Visa gift cards or laptops are offered as incentives to complete the survey - and confirm to spammers that they have a live address.

The figures come from spam filtered by Clearswift for its 20 million users worldwide, analysed and collated by its spamActive service.