As most all of us will know, the United States’ Independence Day is on the fourth of July, which is only a few days away. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, fairs, ceremonies, get togethers, and various other public and private events celebrating the national holiday. Many people also utilize this time for vacation trips, especially if it’s a long July 4th weekend. However, not everyone goes out of town or participates in special events. Some people actually take advantage of the nice holiday weekend to stay at home and catch up on other activities, which may include shopping. Since sales levels are usually lower during holiday weekends, stores and online shopping sites offer lots of exciting deals. In any case, today’s technology makes it possible to shop online from anywhere—even while on a beach vacation, say!

The spammers, as always, have exploited this likelihood and are distributing spam messages...

Yes, of course! This is what the email is all about! Or, is it?

The 2011 Wimbledon Championship has begun in full gusto and like any other major sporting event, we have been observing spam flowing in the wild that targets Wimbledon 2011. Spammers are exploiting the event by sending online betting, casino, and even online pharmacy spam through email.
The Italian spam sample given below mimics a legitimate betting website (the name of the betting site is deliberately omitted). The email headers are spoofed in an effort to bolster the legitimacy of the email; but the Sender domain has been registered only recently and shows hit-and-run spam characteristics. The spammer says, “Bet risk free! Even if you lose the bet, 20 Euros will be reimbursed.”

The spam sample given below explains the steps that users would supposedly need to take to acquire the “bonus”:

1. Sign up and make a deposit into your account.
2. Place your first...

This year, Father’s Day will be celebrated on June 19th. Of course, this is an occasion that is used to express feelings towards dads for all of their love and support, often accompanied by the giving of exclusive gifts. Sadly, spammers don’t forget to send out their fake offers to target this special day. Symantec is observing an increase in spam volume related to this event, which is shown in the graph below.

Father’s Day spam can be categorized into hit-and-run spam promoting fake products, e-cards, dating, and gift card spam. Various product promotions are seen to contain products such as cigars, replica watches, wallets, and computer accessories. Once a user clicks on a fake offer, they are directed to a webpage where they are asked to divulge confidential information such as a credit card number, CVV, email address, etc. Below are some examples of this type of...

I received reports this week of emails that reference transactions of which the recipients have no knowledge. The  email includes a link for more detail, which then attempts to download a ZIP attachment. Nothing new here; most savvy users would know better than to open an attachment in an unsolicited email.

The interesting thing about this email, however, is that it includes a password previously used by the recipient. Seeing private data in an email like this would definitely raise suspicions that the sender has some kind of connection to the recipient, or worse, has comprised their account details. The ultimate goal for the sender is that the user’s curiosity would be piqued sufficiently to open the attachment which would, of course, deliver the inevitable malware payload.

Symantec detects the file as Trojan.Zbot, also called Zeus, which is a Trojan horse that...