Most people may think they're smart enough not to answer an obvious spam message. But is that really the case?
Almost one third of consumers questioned admitted answering e-mails they suspected were spam, says a survey released Wednesday by the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG).
Among those who responded to spam, 17 percent said they clicked on it by mistake, 13 percent said they sent a note to the spammer to complain, while 12 percent said they were interested in the product or service.
The MAAWG's survey study, "A Look at Consumers' Awareness of Email Security and Practices," also discovered that about two-thirds of the people considered themselves "very" or "somewhat" knowledgeable about Internet security. Most of them use antivirus software, but 21 percent said they take no action to prevent spam or dangerous e-mail from hitting their in-box.
(Credit:
Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group )
Further, the survey found that 80 percent of users questioned doubted their computers were ever at risk of being infected with a "bot" that can send spam and create other problems without the user knowing it.
"Spamming has morphed from an isolated hacker playing with some code into a well-developed underground economy that feeds off reputable users' machines to avoid detection," says MAAWG Chair Michael O'Reirdan. "Consumers shouldn't be afraid to use e-mail, but they need to be computer smart and learn how to avoid these problems."
The study was based on phone and online interviews conducted in December and January with 800 computer users in the U.S. and Canada who said they were not "security experts" and who used e-mail addresses not managed by an IT department.
The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group is a global organization comprising ISPs, network operators, and other tech companies. The group's goal is to reduce the abuse and threats affecting electronic mail by focusing on technology, industry collaboration, and public policy initiatives.
Spam now accounts for 90.4 percent of all e-mail, according to a report released Monday from security vendor Symantec. This means that 1 out of every 1.1 e-mails is junk. The report also notes that spam shot up 5.1 percent just from April to May.
Symantec's May 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence report reveals other disturbing trends, as well. Rather than just hijack disreputable Web sites, cybercriminals now favor older and well-established domains to host their malware. The report says 84.6 percent of all domains blocked for malicious content are more than a year old. One type of domain now especially vulnerable to threats is social networking, since most of the sites' content is created by users.
"Spammers using better-known and thus more widely trusted Web sites to host malware is reminiscent of the spammers who rely on well-known Web mail and social networking environments to host spam content," said Paul Wood, Symantec's MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst. "The trustworthy older domains can be compromised through SQL injection attacks while newer sites are more likely to be flagged as suspicious--a temporary site set up with the sole purpose of distributing spam and malware--and thus faster to get shut down."
Where you live also determines when you're spammed, says the report. For people in the U.S., spam hits its peak between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and then drops overnight. Europeans get a solid stream of spam throughout the day, while users in Asia-Pacific countries find most spam waiting for them in the morning. One reason for this trend, says the report, is that most spammers are at their busiest during U.S. working hours.
The popular CAPTCHA program, which asks the user to type in a series of random characters, is no longer proving as effective as once hoped. Many Web sites have relied on CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to ensure that accounts are created by actual human beings.
But criminals have now succeeded in generating profiles with random names, apparently by using automated CAPTCHA breakers. The report notes that some major Web sites are now exploring other ways to block automated accounts, such as using photographic images that a user must analyze.
Spam levels had dropped for a short while last year after the closure of several malware-hosting Internet providers. But spammers have since bounced back from those losses by rebuilding their networks.
Symantec's MessageLabs Intelligence gathers research on spam and other malware from global data centers that track e-mails and Web pages. Symantec releases a new intelligence report each month.
A convicted spammer who escaped from prison was found dead Thursday night, along with his wife and 3-year-old daughter.
Eddie Davidson, dubbed a "spam king," was sentenced to 21 months in prison in April after pleading guilty to falsifying header information to send spam e-mail, tax evasion, and criminal forfeiture, the Associated Press reported.
Police had been searching for Davidson since Sunday, when he escaped from a minimum-security federal prison in Florence, Colo., 90 miles south of Denver, according to the AP.
Police responding to reports of gunshots found Davidson and his family in an SUV in a driveway in Bennett, Colo., according to news reports. A baby was found in a car seat uninjured, and a teenage girl who was shot in the neck ran to a neighbor's house for help and has been hospitalized. The relationship of the baby and teen to Davidson is unclear, according to the AP.
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