Are spammers trying their hand at PDF spam again? Symantec hasobserved a small comeback of PDF spam in the early days of October. PDFspam volume was observed at about zero percent at the end of Septemberand is currently at around two percent.

In recent days we’ve seen the emergence of one PDF pump-and-dumpstock attack of which we have seen over 20,000 messages. This attackconsists of highly randomized headers and body. The body contains thetext for the stock being promoted followed by randomized text in the‘Shakespeare’ technique of spamming. This technique is when a spammertakes blocks of texts from existing works and inserts them into thespam message in attempt to avoid anti-spam filters. A sample of thepump-and-dump stock portion of the message follows:

Fearless International (FRLE) $0.19
Fearless International Inc., a luxury performance boat manufacturer,
has been the focus of the media for the last several months in magazine
such...

A few weeks ago I posted an entryabout how malicious software was using stolen personal information tosend spam which made users believe in its authenticity. Recently, we'veacquired another email claiming to come from an employer who has founda resume matching an open position in their company. Again, looking atthe job profile it seems very lucrative with slim to no work involved.

The position is that of a PayPal Account Manager. The only realrequisite for this job is the possession of a valid PayPal account witha verified bank account. The position description even mentions thatpersonal data such as one’s Social Security number and passwords arenot going to be asked for.

...

…they just move to new mediums. Waaaay back in 1994, a computervirus hoax known as Good Times was passed around the Internet. Whilenot the first computer virus hoax, it is probably one of the bestknown. Since then there have been many similar hoaxes all promisingcertain destruction of your computer if you open an email originatingfrom a certain address or simply by reading certain words that appearon your monitor. Naturally, when many people receive one of thesehoaxes they decide to forward the message to all their friends andfamily to save them from this fate, thus helping the chain letter tospread (if I tell two friends and they tell two friends…).

In recent years, I noticed that these messages were showing up in myinbox less and less frequently. Did people learn not to believe thesemessages? Well, apparently not. They seem to be making a comeback, butrather than being sent via email they’re now sent through the messagingsystems on various social networking sites, as well...