News
Rise in spammed malware in August 2011
Spammers are back to using spam as a method of malware delivery. The malware arrives as executables with the usual suspect extensions exe, pif, com, or packaged in ZIP files. Two social engineering exploits attempt...[more]
Free hosting abuse by spammers
URL blacklists are currently able to list many spam domains in advance. This has spammers searching for alternatives, such as url shorteners. Many url shorteners use url blacklists to check domains that they redirect...[more]
textual imagery
In a new episode in the cat and mouse game between spammers and anti-spam researchers, spammers are now using HTML tables to create tiny colored blocks, which together form words and web site links. Presumably...[more]
New features
ASTPS has been updated with a new feature. Similar to URL RBL blacklists, lookups are used to check for bad hosts in URLs. During testing, the new method accurately detected a substantial portion of spam on our research...[more]
Large drop in spam mails received
Mail servers around the world received much less spam since about 21:00 (9 pm) 11 November 2008 (UTC). Washington Post article [more]
SURBL is changing the usage policy for large sites
SURBL, the Spam URI BlackList has announced that they are changing the usage policy. Sites with 1,000 users or 250,000 queries or more will be asked to purchase a license. This is similar to the Spamhaus organization, who have...[more]
Malware distributed in Office documents
Malware distributors currently use malicious Word and Excel files, attempting to bypass scanners. The malware is send in ZIP files attached to spam. The spam message claims that the attachment is an announcement for...[more]