The five-time Grammy award winner Amy Winehouse was found dead in London on July 23rd. Symantec has already observed spammers who are trying to capitalize on related news headlines by sending out malicious threats less than a day after the news was released.

The two samples given below are examples that we have observed. These Portuguese-language attacks use similar spam techniques. All samples are sent from randomized individual email accounts with various subject lines related to the celebrity’s death in an attempt to lure interested readers to open a malicious URL. Immediately after the link is clicked, a pop-up window is shown, which asks users to download a file that is loosely disguised as an image or video file, for example (anything other than an executable).

The file is given a name that is related to the celebrity, and of course isn’t an image or video file, but a malicious binary. Symantec has detected the threats in these samples as...

It’s been a week since the 2011 edition of the oldest international soccer tournament in the world began, held this year in Argentina. I’m talking about the Copa America. This event is hosted by a South American country every three or four years during the summertime and lasts almost a month. Some say that this tournament is the American equivalent of the UEFA Euro Cup.

South American families and friends hang out together to enjoy the games, and users look for news and the latest results over the Internet. Just as with other important sporting competitions, Symantec has been observing spammers taking advantage of this event to announce multiple unsolicited offers and discounts that are purportedly linked to the soccer tournament.

The spam sample below invites users to visit a Web page that is offering medical equipment. The site also offers more products and discounts that are valid only during the tournament time.

Translation ...

He was seen several years ago. Now, he is back with the name “Don Gunshot”!

Luring people with promises of huge sums of money in return for bogus favors is the classic method adopted by the Nigerian/419 type of spammers. It is one of the oldest forms of spamming; very rudimentary, yet creatively lethal. This revisited scam tactic uses coercion to force people to pay up or else they will (apparently) face dire consequences. From a lighter point of view, however, it is a bit more humorous than scary.

 
The above email is indeed a perfect example of a scammer trying to blackmail someone they don’t know from Adam. The spammer does not know you, but he pretends to have received blood money to kill you. He blackmails you with threats of dire consequences if you even try to whisper the secrets explained in the mail. Forget the police, and if you dare to try and tell...

With our globalized economy, non-English email between international organizations has become the norm for business communication. However, at the same time, non-English spam is also becoming more and more of a problem for national and international enterprises.

For the past several months, Symantec has noticed an increase for Chinese language spam, as shown in the graphic below:

 
What’s interesting about this increase is the resurfacing of a body-obfuscation technique that is being used by Chinese spammers—the technique is called “invisible text.” What is “invisible text,” exactly? Invisible text is the body text that’s the same color as the background; therefore, it is invisible to the human eye.

Below are some samples that Symantec has observed. The first sample is a typical Chinese seminar (training course) promotion spam...