IT security firm Sophos has reported that both the Republican
and Democratic parties sent out unsolicited emails campaigning for
support in advance of the recent US mid-term elections.
The emails were sent out in the days leading up to the November
7th election date, and urged recipients to take to the polls and
cast their votes. Samples were picked up by Sophos's global network
of spamtraps - providing evidence that the emails have not been
targeted specifically at US voters, and could have been distributed
to lists created through online email address 'harvesting'.
"A Sophos spamtrap is not a legitimate US voter, so why did it
receive emails telling it to vote in the mid-term elections?" said
Graham Cluley,
senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Given that the internet is
already being clogged up with spam, do we really need US
politicians adding to the problem by indiscriminately sending out
these unwanted messages?"
Sophos spamtraps have received emails from both
the Republican and Democratic political parties.
According to Sophos, while legally the emails are not classed as
spam - as US political parties are exempt from legislation such as
the CAN-SPAM act - the campaigns bear worrying echoes of
traditional spamming activity. Sophos experts note that recipients
have not necessarily opted-in to receiving political messages.
"It seems that some US political representatives, who helped
draft the anti-spam legislation, are actually contributing to the
glut of unwanted, unrequested email. Ironically, the parties don't
appear to have realised that receiving an unwanted political spam
may actually annoy some recipients enough to make them vote in the
opposite direction," continued Cluley. "Isn't it time for
politicians to abide by the same kind of internet etiquette
guidelines that we would expect of any legitimate organization,
rise above the tactics of spammers, and only send emails to those
people who have specifically opted-in to receive such
communications?"
Sophos recommends companies protect their desktops, servers and
gateways with a consolidated solution to
thwart the threats of viruses, spyware, phishing and spam.
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.