Security Response

When scammers try to gain sympathy from the email readers or to entice them with huge amount of money, they will usually mention a tragedy or, any event that attracted huge public attention. They may also want the users to read additional information, therefore a URL from a well-known news site is also provided. This addition of a link may assure a reader that the email is genuine, and some action needs to be taken in response to the email. Toward the end of the email scam, an appeal to help the victims is made if it is a tragic event. This message will also provide contact information in the form of email addresses, phone or fax numbers.

Anti spam filters will find it easier to block the news URLs in the scam message because, although they are legitimate, these are old news items and should ideally not be in circulation for any reason.

For the sake of curiosity, we went through our active filters to check such news URLs and surprisingly found some of the filters...

Some of the sample headers seen in the attack:

Communication in the today’s world is dominated by email, instant messaging, and social networking. However, for making any formal statement or announcement, hard-copy letters are still sent using postal services. In both mediums, unwanted, unsolicited letters are not new; however, it may still be surprising if a spam message is sent over using postal services - somewhat low tech, but perhaps most effective way to bypass all kinds of online security. In a letter shared by a recipient, we found familiar text seen in emails associated with scams. We confirmed the hard-copy letter to be a 419 scam.

Here is the scanned copy of the letter (where the identity and address of the recipient have been blurred):

Text inside the letter has everything that we commonly see with email scams, except that we do not find any reply-to email addresses. Also, the scammer stresses that recipients must only fax the...

Symantec has come across a spam campaign for an Indian stock, perhaps for the first time. As usually seen in typical stock spam message, this particular email claims that the stock price for this company will rise by 500% because of a possible buyout or partnership with an American outsourcing company and it urges recipients to buy the stocks quickly.

Subject lines for these spam attacks are:

Indian shares with 800.% gain potential

Best indian stock on the nse market

India's most secret pennystock

This is definitely an attempt to influence the stock price of a publicly traded company. These exaggerated profits with little investment shown in the spam message may tempt users, especially with Diwali occurring, to use the opportunity to earn quick bucks. However, users need to understand that such promotions are meant to artificially increase the stock...