Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global network of virus and
spam analysis centres, are unsure whether to laugh or cry at a
recent development in the spammers' arsenal: apologetic humour.
Some of the latest unsolicited spam emails are including jokes
in an attempt, they say, to decrease the irritation of recipients.
In the latest incident, a spammer trying to sell patches for penis
enlargement has bulk-mailed hundreds of thousands of people with a
joke about a blonde woman.
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| The spam email contains a joke about a blonde
woman. |
"The spammers' idea is quite cunning. Even though good anti-spam
software will typically mark messages like this with a high spam
score, some users may deliberately retrieve it and read it if they
know a joke is contained inside," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "The spammers need only take any
decent (or indecent) internet joke, perhaps by subscribing to one
of the many legitimate joke of the day services, and stick a brief
apology for the inconvenience and a link to their unsolicited
advert at the end. Then they spam millions of unsuspecting
users."
In the past spammers have deliberately included large sections
of legitimate text, such as paragraphs from news stories, in their
emails in an attempt to "unbalance" anti-spam products trying to
determine if an email is a legitimate communication or spam.
Spammers including jokes in their email campaigns may also be doing
so in an attempt to slip past the more rudimentary anti-spam
products.
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a consolidated solution which can defend businesses
from the threats of both spam and viruses; and that users do not
open or reply to unsolicited emails.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.