SPAM Adopts E-Mail Virus Like Tactics
Posted: 30th Apr, 2003 By: MarkJ
Anti-spam activists claim that unscrupulous spammers are intentionally hijacking the e-mail accounts of innocent surfers, using virus (trojan) like methods, to send millions of unwanted messages.
This would certainly help to explain yesterdays BTOpenworld SPAM related news item, in which one of the ISPs customers found their e-mail address had been taken over by junk mailers:
As governments, companies and net service firms unite to tackle spam, the number of insecure internet relays and mail gateways available for spammers to use is diminishing.
This has driven some desperate junk mailers to start creating virus-like programs that take over someone's e-mail account and use it as a funnel for millions of messages. Like many other viruses these programs exploit weaknesses in Microsoft's popular Outlook e-mail package.
One of the first hijacking programs to emerge was called "Jeem" and hid within it an e-mail engine so it could efficiently route messages via an infected computer.
If ever there was a reason to install an anti-virus client then this is it, although you should really have one installed to start with. More @ BBC News Online.
This would certainly help to explain yesterdays BTOpenworld SPAM related news item, in which one of the ISPs customers found their e-mail address had been taken over by junk mailers:
As governments, companies and net service firms unite to tackle spam, the number of insecure internet relays and mail gateways available for spammers to use is diminishing.
This has driven some desperate junk mailers to start creating virus-like programs that take over someone's e-mail account and use it as a funnel for millions of messages. Like many other viruses these programs exploit weaknesses in Microsoft's popular Outlook e-mail package.
One of the first hijacking programs to emerge was called "Jeem" and hid within it an e-mail engine so it could efficiently route messages via an infected computer.
If ever there was a reason to install an anti-virus client then this is it, although you should really have one installed to start with. More @ BBC News Online.
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