NEW YORK: Security software maker McAfee Inc. has identified a new spamming method, which it calls "spam island-hopping." Spammers use domain names of small islands as website links in sending spams and attacking computer systems.
McAfee said these spammers, by using top level domains of small island countries, are succeeding in avoiding detection through spam filters as these filters do not recognize such domain names easily.
The security firm has traced large scale spam activity originating from the Isle of Man in the Irish sea and the island of Tokelau, among others.
It said spammers were using well known domains with extensions such as .com, .biz or .info, but since these are common and can be detected easily by filters, they have adopted the new strategy to evade detection.
McAfee's software researchers had been noticing an increasing use of extension .st, which is a top-level domain for Sao Tome and Principle, an island near the west coast of Africa.
A senior development manager for anti-spam research and development team at McAfee, Guy Roberts, said this new trend is another example of spammers' relentless quest to spread their abuse of Internet domains far and wide. He said of these islands have dozens of spammed domains per square mile.
Some of the island countries being used by spammers, according to McAfee, are Tokelau, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Tuvalu, American Samoa, the Isle of Man, Tonga and Sao Tome and Principe.
Security experts say this is nothing new as spammers are constantly evolving and using newer strategies in their mission. Their endeavor is to bypass spam filters and there is substantially high financial gain to be made in doing so, they say.
Meanwhile, researchers at MessageLabs, a security firm in New York, have reported significant increase in spam-related botnet activities, like the SpamThru network. This has happened after the recent virus attack using Warezov virus. The firm said it has detected some 1.5 million copies of the virus, also called Stration, after it was released midnight 26 October. The virus is a mass-mailing worm that propagates by sending copies of itself as an attachment to e-mail addresses found on an infected system. Once it is executed, it runs a Windows computer's notepad application and drops malware files into the machine's Windows folder and attempts to download additional malware programs.
MessageLabs researchers warned that Warezov-infected computers on the internet will create an incredible number of spam-sending zombie systems operating online, which will complicate the spam problem.
Meanwhile, an effort to stop the malady has been launched. The StopSpamAlliance industry consortium, which came into being 1 November, is a joint initiative of some international IT organizations. It is planning to lobby for anti-spam enactments and other enforcement measures, in addition to educating consumers on the harmful impact of spam and in creating industry best practices.
