Spammers now targeting cybercops

Stan Beer
Sunday, 03 December 2006 13:08

Business IT - Security

Spammers are trying destabilize global spam-reporting services by flooding them with automated false spam reports, according to an Australian data security specialist.

According to anti-spam vendor, TotalBlock, which uses a challenge-response system, the evidence came to light when one of the company's customers was sent a spam email, which TotalBlock’s spam-blocking technique challenged. The original spammer then reported TotalBlock’s challenge to spam reporting service SpamCop as a spam email.
 
SpamCop is an Ironport Systems, Inc. initiative that determines the origin of unwanted email and reports it to the relevant Internet service providers.
 
TotalBlock CIO Ben Corby, who created the TotalBlock challenge-response solution for countering spam, said: “We believe this is clear evidence that Spamcop is being duped by spammers, who are directly targeting the reporting system.  There is little doubt that other reporting sites are being similarly hit by false spam claims.
 
“In our case, all we sent back to the spammer was a failed delivery receipt – multitudes of these are sent across the Internet.  We believe that spammers are automating false spam reports because Spamcop has no way of dealing with them.  Anyone can report spam, including spammers. It is clear they are trying to destabilise the system.”
 
Corby said the vulnerability of blacklists created from false reports had the potential to throw global business communications into confusion, since Internet service providers the world over use such services. 
 
The SpamCop web site (www.spamcop.net) claims: “By reporting spam, you have a positive impact on the problem.  Reporting unsolicited email also helps feed spam filtering systems, including, but not limited to, SpamCop's own service.”

TotalBlock has been campaigning against spam filtering techniques and spam blacklists for the past two years, claiming that the challenge-response method is more effective. However, the challenge-response method has its own detractors. One weakness that has been pointed out is that challenges can be filtered out by anti-spam filtering systems so that senders never receive the challenge. Another weakness is that spammers can send spam disguised as challenges.

The latest surveys by security vendors indicate that as much as 90% of all emails being sent today are spam.