Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have
identified a new marketing trick being used by spammers in their
attempt to sell fake luxury watches in the run-up to Christmas:
they are sending cookie recipes.
The unsolicited email messages contain a detailed recipe,
including ingredients and instructions, on how to make "Santa's
Chocolate Sleigh Bell Cookies". The spammers also provide a link to
their website which helpfully sells fake watches if readers do not
have a way of timing how long to leave the peanut butter and
chocolate chip mixture in the saucepan.
Recipes have been spammed out to promote a
website selling fake watches.
"It's still spam, even if they are giving you ingredients for
chocolate chip cookies. The spammers are clogging up email
bandwidth with their unwanted marketing messages, and damaging
legitimate luxury brands by selling replica goods of often shoddy
quality," said Graham
Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "When people
receive an email like this it shouldn't be sleigh bells they can
hear, but alarm bells instead. There's a simple rule that people
can follow when it comes to spam: Don't try, don't buy, don't
reply."
The recipes are being sent to promote a
spammer's website.
"Spammers are making huge profits by marketing their goods via
unsolicited email, and it's only because people buy their products
that they continue to bombard our inboxes" continued Cluley. "We
have seen a rise in the amount of Rolex-related spam, in
particular, during the course of the year. Consumers should take
onboard the message that genuine Rolex products are not sold via
the internet, and can only be purchased from authorized jewellers.
A Rolex bought from a spammer's website for Christmas, may well
have broken down by Boxing Day."
For more information about the latest trends in spam and
viruses, read the Sophos
Security Threat Management Report 2005. Amongst other topics,
the report identifies which countries around the world have been
responsible for relaying the most spam during 2005, and that
pornographic spam and messages attempting "pump-and-dump" stock
scams have surged.
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a consolidated solution which can defend businesses
from the threats of both spam and viruses.
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.