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| Sophos works closely with the IWF to combat
internet child abuse. |
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centres, have warned
computer users of an increase in highly offensive emails designed
to lure new web traffic to one of several child-porn websites.
As a result of aggressive spam campaigns, Sophos has seen a
threefold increase in the amount of illegal child-porn websites
over the past week. Sophos works closely with the Internet Watch
Foundation (IWF), the authorized UK organisation that combats
illegal internet content, and reports the discovery of any illegal
child-porn website to the organisation.
Most of the email samples, collected at Sophos's global network
of monitoring stations, clearly suggest that the content will be
offensive. Even the tamest of subject lines,
'**P*E*D*O***L*O*V*E**' or 'Lolita pictures and videos', are fairly
explicit. The email message invites the recipient to click on a
link to view illegal material.
To get through certain email filters that might look for
specific text patterns, the author of these spam messages appears
to have used extracts from a quotation database, selected at
random. Other tricks used to slip through the spam traps include
using asterisks between letters in the email subject headings.
"Seeing such offensive emails in our spam traps is always
upsetting because no one should need to deal with such unpleasant
material," said Carole
Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. "It is too
early to say whether this is a new trend, but this week has shown
definite growth in the number of child-porn websites being linked
to from spam messages."
News of these spam campaigns coincides with 18 of the world's
most prominent financial institutions and internet firms joining
the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children,
which aims to eradicate commercial child pornography by 2008.
Sophos strongly recommends that all companies and home computer
users protect their email with a consolidated
solution to thwart the threats of spam, spyware 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.