Image-based Spam on the Rise

by admin July 5, 2006 at 9:07 am

Have you noticed more spam in your inbox lately? You’re not alone.

Among the lead culprits in the spam overflow is a new take on an old technique called image-based spam. By definition, image-based spam contains its unwanted content inside of graphics, making it difficult for some spam filters to identify.

According to a new study from e-mail security vendor IronPort, image-based spam in June of 2006 represents 12 percent of all spam, up from only 1 percent in June of 2005.

Security firm CipherTrust reports an even higher percentage of image-based spam at 15 percent.

“While using images in spam is not a new concept, changing the image in real-time in each delivered spam message is a relatively new capability that the spammers have been able to acquire,” Dmitri Alperovitch, research scientist with CipherTrust told internetnews.com.

“This is due to the development and release of the new high-performance software marketed in the underground markets that is able to randomize images in a very high-performance fashion and allow spammers to send millions of them every hour.”

Full article: internetnews.com