Spammers get the lingo

Filed in archive Spam News on September 28, 2006

The ingenious spammers have once again impressed me by the amount of wits they use to get their spam through. I reckon a lot of them could have by now found cure for AIDS or cancer with that persistence and smarts. But no, they choose to use it to make world a less nice place.

Onto our topic again, let me tell you that the Dark Reading website warns of the newest strategies spammers are starting to use. Tim Wilson writes:

"The new spam messages include words and phrases such as ".NET," "XSS," or trouble ticket numbers that simultaneously avoid Baysian content filters and trick IT staffers into opening it."

Hitting IT personnel where it hurts the most, spammers must be having wide grins on their faces right now. Further along in the article computer security experts warn that we could be seeing only the beginning of the lingo spam, with lawyers, doctors, financial services and other industries being next. This spam approach works well because it confuses more than one e-mail filter.

The article concludes:

"To avoid the problem, Sergeant advises companies to approach spam with filters that use more than one Screening technique, avoiding sole reliance on Baysian or learning filters."