Why is spam dangerous?

Spam is often for products, services, or opportunities that are worthless, nonexistent, or dangerous. It may even attempt to sell you illegal or homemade drugs or involve you in a criminal enterprise (such as receiving and forwarding merchandise purchased with stolen credit card numbers). Spam may also represent outright fraud, such as pyramid schemes or phishing. Or it may simply steal the money (and often the credit card numbers) you send without ever delivering the promised product or service.

Variations on the Nigerian 419 scam (named after the section of the Nigerian Penal Code it violates) are particularly dangerous. In this scam, victims receive an email requesting their help in getting a large sum of money out of the country (or claiming an inheritance or a lottery prize). Victims have lost tens of thousands of dollars and even been kidnapped and murdered as a result of this email.

Why can’t Internet Service Providers block all spam?

ISPs use antispam technology to stop spam from reaching end-user mailboxes, but spammers go to great lengths to evade controls. They avoid or disguise hot-button subject lines. They use “image spam”—a picture of the text, rather than actual text—to evade content filtering. And they use botnets—remotely controlled PCs they’ve hijacked—to rapidly move from one host site to another, preventing ISPs from blocking email at the source.

It is also difficult to filter out spam without also blocking an unacceptable number of legitimate messages.

Does Symantec have a product to protect against spam?

Yes. Norton AntiSpam™, available as an add-on to Norton Internet Security™ and Norton 360™ (with a valid subscription), automatically filters out annoying and fraudulent email from your inbox, while still allowing you to receive mail from trusted sources.