Welcome to our February "Cybercrime Trend Newsletter." This month we as the questions: "Are you a spammer?" "Is your computer compromised and sending out spam without your knowledge?"
This month's newsletter is designed to educate you on spam. You'll learn the latest information including where spam comes from, how it works and what you can do to prevent becoming a victim.
All Internet security companies agree every bit of spam comes from compromised computers. These computers are a part of a botnet. The computer has been attacked, infected and is now a part of the botnet hackers use to send out spam. These compromised computers can, also, be used to steal personal information, for distributed denial of service attacks and more.
If you think spam attacks were bad in 2009, just wait until 2010 gets going
Will 2010 be the Year of Spam?
In its 2009 Annual Security Report, the networking gurus at Cisco predict that worldwide spam volumes will increase by 30 or 40 percent over 2009 levels. So get ready for a fresh glop of discounted penile-enhancement pills, strange women "winking" at you through nonexistent dating sites, and faux Nigerian princes promising $100 million waiting for you overseas. The hardest hit by this gush of obnoxiousness will be social networking sites, especially the king of them all: Facebook
Practically every day, the messages find their way into the in-box, typically at least one or two per day -- obvious spam scams.
- 70% of respondents consider spam "extremely significant" or "significant" for their security operations.
- Over 25% of respondents said spam accounted for less than 10% of helpdesk calls.
- ESPs consider spam prevention as a "competitive advantage" to attract and retain customers. However, spam is not a 'critical factor".
Here's the deal: Spam scams, which are pretty obvious, will often make their way into your in-box even though you have a filter system set up. Until someone invents the perfect spam filter, this is the unfortunate reality. The best solution? Hit the delete button.
Most e-mail programs also have a "Junk Mail" button, but unfortunately, there's always a new one coming in.
You can often tell a spam scam by the e-mail subject line, which is oftentimes blank, labeled important, announces that you have won the lottery or is written in Russian or another language you don't recognize.
Rosemarie Grabowski
Computer Security Specialist
Monday, February 8, 2010
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