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Jul 02, 2009
Symantec’s Monthly And Quarterly MessageLabs Reports
The new MessageLabs report is out from Symantec, and it should come as no surprise that spam continues to account for more than 90% of all email. Most of this, also no surprise, comes from botnets. Here are a few excerpts from the press report: Symantec Corp. today announced ... more  
   
Jul 01, 2009
The Inevitable Michael Jackson Spam
It’s as inevitable as A-B-C. Easy as 1-2-3. Simple as do-re-mi. So to speak. Michael Jackson’s untimely death has unleashed a flood of spam looking to capitalize upon the intense worldwide interest right now in the self-styled King of Pop. Since his death was truly unexpected, the ... more  
   
Jun 30, 2009
Chinese Ban Gold Farming
China made news today by banning “gold farming,” or selling online “virtual” currency (most often used in online role playing games). Or at least partially banning it. Or attempting to, at any rate. Since China is home to most of the world’s gold farming industry, worth hundreds ... more  
   
Jun 26, 2009
Good News And Bad On Iran Twitter Spam
Twitter was never meant to be a revolutionary tool, as (reportedly) even its founders admit. But it has been thrust into the limelight of the world’s stage as the protest movement in Iran found that Twitter met the needs of reporting what was going on in Tehran to the ... more  
   
Jun 25, 2009
China Responsible For 70 Percent Of All Spam
I would have guessed “Russia,” myself, but a new study is out from the University of Alabama at Birmingham has fingered China as the worst spam country in the world. Not so much for generating the spam itself, but for facilitating the sites spam directs the unsuspecting user to. ... more  
   
Jun 24, 2009
Fake Microsoft Update Actually Spam
As the average computer user gets a bit more sophisticated about what to click on and what not to, spammers evolve their tactics, relying more heavily on fake announcements from trusted sites, or at the very least trusted subjects. The latest manifestation of this trend showed up in a ... more  
   
Jun 23, 2009
Five Spammers Plead Guilty In Federal Court
Five notorious spammers pled guilty to various charges under the CAN-SPAM Act, and other nefarious computer crimes, in a federal court in Michigan today. The names of the spammers, just to heap a little more shame upon them: Alan M. Ralsky, 64, and Scott K. Bradley, 38, both of West ... more  
   
Jun 19, 2009
Microsoft Fights Back Against Click Fraud
Microsoft filed a lawsuit today naming three people (and multiple companies they allegedly own) over click fraud, in what appears to be a precedent-setting case. Today’s post will be a bit long, since I found two good articles about the court filing, both worth reading for the details involved. ... more  
   
Jun 18, 2009
Spam King Shows Up In Court
The self-titled “Spam King” Sanford Wallace showed up in a San Jose court, to answer charges from Facebook that he was violating a restraining order and continuing his spammy ways. While the upshot was that his case has now been referred to federal prosecutors, it certainly made news in ... more  
   
Jun 17, 2009
Botnet Shopping Made Easy?
The security company Finjan is reporting they’ve uncovered a “one-stop shopping” website for anything a scam artist could need in the way of botnets. Though the article is lacking in detail, in general terms it outlines a pretty scary idea — making it easier for botnet operators to communicate ... more  
   

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