Late last year, Trend Micro senior threat researcher Ben April discussed the security implications of using internationalized domain names (IDNs). IDNs are domain names that use non-English/non-ASCII characters. As Ben discussed, there are several ways by which cybercriminals can abuse IDNs and use these in their malicious attacks. Today, we saw such abuse, as spammers used IDNs as spam…
Read MoreFlorabel Baetiong
Anti-spam Research Engineer
In the past few months, Russia has climbed up the list of top spam-sending countries. From seventh in August, it climbed to sixth place in September and to fourth place in October. We noted that many of the spam runs this month originated from Russia. Below are some of the spam samples we saw and…
Read MoreText scams are increasingly becoming common again due to the forthcoming Philippine national and local elections, as political campaigns take to rampant text messaging for faster political mobilization. Earlier, I received a text message with the following content: May GOD bountifuly bles u & ur family. Have a blissful day Fr Frends of UNI-MAD Party…
Read MorePolitical spats and issues are once again seen bleeding into cyberspace as notable attacks related to politics were seen today. The Israeli Legislative Election for 2009 to be held on February 10 was used by spammers as bait for users to download malware on their systems. The election is supposedly to be held in 2010….
Read MoreHolidays and popular annual events as a social engineering tool in spamming is a signature Storm technique. The following spammed email message should then cement WALEDAC’s association with the said bot giant. Figure 1. Spammed Valentine’s greetings. These messages flood inboxes weeks before Valentine’s day, also typical of previous Storm spam runs. Clicking on the…
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