Filter 'exhausted', spam rebellion

After a period of lull, spam spilled fiercely when spammers found a way to bypass filters, this time there was a "lethargic" part.

A study published last month by security firm Postini found that spam now accounts for more than 91% of all email sent, and in the past 12 months, daily spam volume has increased dramatically: 120% .

Another study by IronPort Systems concluded that the number of global spam has increased from 31 billion letters per day (October 2005) to 61 billion (October 2006).

According to analysts, there are two main reasons for this rebellion. First of all, spammer is making good use of botnet computer networks to distribute spam. There are more than 1 million computers that are being hijacked for spam and viruses every day. Every second passes, there are 50,000 new computers taken by hackers.

Source: AFP Second, more importantly, the spammer has found many sophisticated techniques to bypass the filter, most notably the use of "image spam". Image spam now accounts for a quarter of the global total of spam, which is up to 421% over the same period last year.

Increasingly sophisticated

Paul Judge, Secure Computing's chief technology officer, said filters that use mathematical analysis, keywords or even optical identification have now become helpless against this latest form of spam. "They use advanced mathematical and graphic techniques such as randomly editing the resolution of the image, the dynamic structure of the image, and so the filter stands blank."

Spam can bring profits to dispersers in every way. It may advertise a product, such as Viagra tonic or phishing, which leads users to a "phishing" website to elicit sensitive financial and password information. In addition, it can carry attachments, virus infections to computers, enabling hackers to requisition and use that computer to spread spam.

And dangerous

Source: SecurityLabs According to security firm PandaLabs, a new type of spam is emerging, with the aim of clearly pushing up the price of some companies. "It seems that spammers have speculated on these stocks when they are cheap and want to make money fast by raising their prices."

The dangerous nature of this new type is that if it can push stock prices up, they can drop that stock price any time. Spammers can use spam as a destructive weapon against investors or a specific business.

Thus, all hopes of pushing back spam have vanished like soap bubbles. The CAN-SPAM anti-spam law is almost useless. Chairman Bill Gates' statement in 2004 that the problem of spam will be controlled within the last two years is also an illusion.

Another trend in spammers is to use the domain of tiny islands, few people arrive to disguise and deceive filters (which only detect familiar domain names). The list of these islands includes the Isle of Man, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Tonga, Sao Tome, Principe and many more names that you have never heard of in this lifetime.

" According to statistics, many islands have dozens of domains spreading spam on an area of ​​one square mile. It is frightening ," said McAfee expert Guy Roberts.

Trong Cam