Presidential Campaign Hit With Spam Scandal

Filed in archive Spam News on November 3, 2007

Presidential candidate Ron Paul's campaign was hit with a scandal last week when several security researchers discovered a spam attack earlier this week that allegedly sent spam messages supporting Paul's bid for the Republican nomination for President. The messages had subject lines like "Ron Paul Stops Iraq War!" and "Vote Ron Paul 2008!" The message bodies included a few words of gibberish at the end, a classic tactic spammers use to get around spam filters.

The spammers invent random first and last names, and the PC's used are likely part of a botnet. Most of the IP addresses on the spam messages are from overseas locations such as el salvador, Korea, Japan, and Nigeria.

"I would first say that this is the latest example of how a botnet can be used and misused," Mike Haro, a senior security analyst for Sophos told TechNewsWorld.com "This is obviously politically motivated, and as a result this could be damaging to Congressman Ron Paul's reputation."