I have been getting some of the weirdest spam lately with some of the funniest lines I have ever seen. I have been learning about some of the ways that spammers work that I hadn’t realized before and as they say forewarned is forearmed. Of course I never send chain letters anymore because it could contain a Trojan or virus which would be sent to anyone I forward it to.
At one point when I first started on the internet we would all send jokes and that kind of stuff, but I soon learned that was something I didn’t want to be involved with. I really don’t care if they threaten all the bad luck in the world or that I will get 50,000 dollars within the next month. In fact I seldom send any email anymore.
Everyone by now knows about email spoofing, where they use the fake header that imitates a credible source so you will think it’s from paypal, msn, ebay, or your bank in hopes that you will click their link and give up all your valuable information. This technique is widely used because it’s easy to do and it has caught individuals off guard and they fell right into the spammers trap. Never click a link inside this type of email. If in doubt type in the url yourself and check and then send the spoof email to paypal or wherever so they can track it.
Like this one I just got from Bank of America and since I don’t have an account there it’s obviously a spoof and besides they can’t spell.
“This is an official notification from Bank of America that the service(s) listed below will be suspended and dezactivated if not renewed immediately.Previous notifications have been sent to AccessOnline Contact assigned to this account. Because we had some problems with the accounts, we have to ask you to please list your personal information. ”
Hotmail is so good at catching this garbage and I love the way they disable the Image-based Spam also because the GIF image bears the spammy text message. A lot of other email programs don’t catch these.
A web beacon which is an “invisible GIF,” is an image sent out with spam that is invisible to the recipient and when you open the email the spammer is then alerted that your email address is “live.” This one I didn’t know about until a week or so ago so now I simply delete almost everything without opening.
Mining message boards and chat rooms is another way that spammers collect email addresses by using an automated program known as spambots. If you leave your email in these public places they are gathered up and added to a spammers mailing list.
An open proxy is a 3rd party server that let spammers camouflage their true identities as well as their Internet locations, when they send out junk mail. Just like the proxy servers people use for their browsers so they can hide their trail. Many spammers use these open proxy servers to help maintain their anonymity.
Spammers also use Javascript to make sure that the spam is only visible when the email loads. This type of spam can only be prevented by using anti-spam software that decodes or blocks the java script. There are so many other ploys that spammers use, but we are catching on quick like using a personal subject line to make you think it’s from a friend.
Related: Where To Report Spam|5 Myths About Phishing|Leaving Comments That Are Relevant|Internet Marketing/Message Boards And Spam ||Can Hackers Be Stopped?
Eclectic Resources spam spamming tricks
