What is Spam?
The term "spam" is Internet slang that refers to unsolicited commercial email (UCE) or unsolicited bulk email (UBE). Some people refer to this kind of communication as junk email to equate it with the paper junk mail that comes through the US Mail. Unsolicited email most often contains advertisements for services or products, but very few reputable marketers use UCE to advertise. The most commonly seen spam includes the following:- Phishing scams, a very popular and dangerous form of email fraud
- Foreign bank scams or advance fee fraud schemes
- Pyramid schemes, including multilevel marketing (MLM)
- Other "Get Rich Quick" or "Make Money Fast" (MMF) schemes
- Quack health products and remedies
- Ads for pornographic web sites
- Offers of software for collecting email addresses and sending UCE
- Offers of bulk emailing services for sending UCE
- Chain letters (for more information, see About chain mail)
- Illegally pirated software ("Warez")
Negative Effects of Spam:
Besides the obvious inconvenience of time wasted clicking through and deleting spam email messages, what are some of the negative effects of spam? To the average user, it’s as simple as having better things to do than hunt through their email accounts for ”real” messages – messages they want to receive. For businesses, it is money spent paying employees for work they aren’t doing because they’re spending work hours picking through emails.
Then we have the hapless user who falls into a phish trap. To this user the problem can include a financial hit, not to mention the endless hours spent trying to get their money back or pursuing legal action.
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/high-cost-spam
Phishing explained
Phishing scams are typically fraudulent email messages appearing to come from legitimate enterprises (e.g., your university, your Internet service provider, your bank). These messages usually direct you to a spoofed web site or otherwise get you to divulge private information (e.g., password, credit card, or other account updates). The perpetrators then use this private information to commit identity theft.One type of phishing attempt is an email message stating that you are receiving it due to fraudulent activity on your account, and asking you to "click here" to verify your information. http://kb.iu.edu/data/arsf.html
The following chart shows the top brands exploited by Phishers.
Top Brands Targeted by Phishing Scams: Pie Chart
[McAfee]
http://www.internetthreat.org/2009/01/top-10-phishing-scams.html
Here is an example of what a phishing scam in an email message might look like.
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/phishing/symptoms.aspx
RESOURCES:
The following is a resource for reporting internet fraud including spam and scams. It lists various goverment resources for reporting and learning about internet intrusions.
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Internet_Fraud.shtml
The following are the site addresses of the three credit monitoring agencies. Each site has options for obtaining credit reports, tips for protecting against identity theft, how to put a security alert on your credit, and how to protect against credit fraud:
Equifax:
http://www.equifax.com/
Experian:
www.experian.com/fraud
Transunion:
http://www.tuc.com/
Resources for free/ inexpensive tools to:
- block spam
- set up firewalls
- protect identity
for a free fire wall
** http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials
for free anti-virus software
** http://www.spamfighter.com/Product_Info.asp
for free spam block software for microsoft outlook; outlook epxress; windows mail
