Tag: SPAMMERS

Glance at your inbox lately? If it seems to be overflowing with crap you just don't need, well, that's probably because it is. While spam filters have been working more effectively than ever, you, my friend, have been pretty much undermining the entire process by signing up for every travel, sales and group-buying program out there. Infographic World has a masterful infographic showing just how ...

If you spend a lot of your time chatting with your friends on Facebook, you'd better be on the lookout for a gang of spammers that appears to be hijacking accounts and spreading its stupid little surveys via instant messages. All Facebook's Jackie Cohen recently received one of these spammy chats from a friend who wasn't even online at the time, inviting her to click on a link to receive a ...

Google's high-quality search results have been hit hard lately as spammers have been increasingly successful in gaming the system to serve you useless pages that contain only a nugget of relevancy to your query and are slathered in ads. To illustrate this growing problem, the founders of startup search engine Blekko created the Spam Clock, which claims that more than 220 million spam pages have ...

Everyone hates spam, but few hate it quite as much as Daniel Balsam does. Eight years ago, Balsam suddenly decided that he'd seen enough spam pollute his inbox, and decided to do something about it. He quit his job in marketing, created a website called Danhatesspam.com, went to law school, and devoted his career to bringing spammers to justice. Since then, he's taken myriad spammers to court, ...

Federal investigators are currently pursuing a 23-year-old Russian man accused of orchestrating the so-called 'Mega-D' botnet that, at one point, had the capacity to send 10 billion spam e-mails per day. The network of 500,000 infected computers was taken down late last year, but one researcher quoted by the FBI said that Mega-D, at the height of its powers, "was likely the largest botnet in the ...

Law enforcement agencies periodically dismantle spam organizations, and successful campaigns inevitably lead to fleeting, yet wondrous, periods of diminished e-mail junk. Well, we've apparently entered one of those temporary stays from trash, so enjoy those Viagra-free inboxes while you can. According to the New York Times, Russian authorities believe the disappearance of spam mastermind Igor ...

A few months ago, we told you about a growing wave of spammers who had begun outsourcing their CAPTCHA-solving duties to low-wage workers in developing countries. Now, a recently published study from UC San Diego has revealed just how insidious and exploitative this underground market really is. In the paper (PDF), which was presented at the recent USENIX Computer Symposium, researchers found that ...

Forget its tumbling currency and stagnant labor market. Europe has another issue far more important: spam. Lots and lots of spam. According to a recently released report from security firm Sophos, the Old World has just surpassed Asia as the world's leading spam continent, accounting for more than a third of all junk e-mail sent during the second quarter of 2010. Among individual European ...

Share In the past few weeks, spammers and hackers have feasted on Facebook like King Curtis on bacon. Now, however, it looks as if Facebook has finally decided to take some action. Yesterday, the social network announced on its blog that users will soon benefit from a host of new security features specially designed to "keep the bad guys out." From now on, you can choose to be automatically ...

As technology and globalization continue to break down economic barriers and more fully integrate national economies, finding cheap, affordable labor has become easier than ever. And spammers are no exception. According to the New York Times, spammers have begun paying workers in developing countries to solve Captchas, those ubiquitous tests that require site visitors to identify a series of fuzzy ...

Back on August 21st, federal investigators in New York issued a search warrant against Levi Beers and Chris di Diego, both of whom were accused of masterminding a spam operation called Pulse Marketing. Instead of just seizing the suspects' e-mails, though, police went one step further and snatched all files saved on their respective Google Docs, as well. Ten days after FBI officials issued the ...

Share It doesn't take long for little kids to figure out that when they touch a hot stove, they get burned. For whatever reason, though, older human beings still haven't learned that clicking on spam can burn them with equal ferocity. According to a recent report from the Ipsos Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), people are continuing to intentionally open spam e-mails and even click ...

One prominent Ottawa professor is blaming lax Canadian legislation for what he identifies as a proliferation of spammers in the country, Ars Technica points out. The Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa's School of Law, Geist cites a report by anti-spam software provider Cloudmark in his claims that Canada has emerged as a safe haven for spammers. That report found ...

There may be a threat lurking among your holiday presents this year, so be wary. One of the season's most deeply ingrained traditions could be the entry point for spammers and scammers who prey upon unsuspecting online holiday shoppers. The big retail shopping day that is Black Friday is followed by Cyber Monday, the first Monday following Thanksgiving when millions of people return to work ...

Web security firm Sophos just published its study of security threats for the first six months of 2008, and you'd be wise to take heed of its findings. The Internet is a dangerous place, and every year it becomes more and more perilous for you and your personal data. The study is long and dull, so we put together some quick bullet points to save you some time and head scratching: 2008 has ...