Spammers Promise Super-Human Powers to Mere Mortals; Clearswift's Spam Index Reveals Trends in August

Business Wire, August 31, 2005

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Spammers are targeting "the superhero within" with software apparently capable of endowing users with "super-human" powers, according to Clearswift's latest Spam Index, the tech industry's most in-depth analysis of unsolicited e-mails. Spam promising "all of your heart's desires ... automatically" are making an appearance in in-boxes around the world.

In what could be an attempt to jump on the bandwagon of the superhero film craze, such as "Batman Begins" and the recently released "Fantastic Four," spammers are claiming that their "breakthrough technology" will supply a plethora of benefits from long life to the perfect body. Spurious offers of software that promises to "automatically motivate, empower, and re-educate your mind to develop "super-human"-like powers ... fast!" have proliferated, along with other apparently "miraculous" products. Particularly gullible PC users can even buy authentic magic "coins that can change your life."

Also identified in this month's Spam Index is a massive growth in gambling spam; with e-mails increasing by more than 1,500%. Recent reports reveal that online gambling services have rocketed, particularly following the World Poker Series finals in July, with companies such as PartyGaming claiming to be making $1.4m a day from this lucrative growing industry.

"Spammers really appear to be taking the concept of the 'silly season' all too literally," said Alyn Hockey, Clearswift's director of research. "Despite the fact that their claims are laughable, PC users should not click onto these e-mails or forward them as jokes to colleagues. Not only is this software likely to be highly ineffectual, but by clicking on these e-mails you might infect your PC with spyware or pass your bank details on to a potentially insecure site."

Financial- and health care-related spam, such as loans and drug offers, continues to be a dominant theme, making up 31% and 41% of all unsolicited e-mails, respectively. E-mails purporting to be from eBay and South Trust are making up a sizable proportion of scams while get-rich-quick scam spam are on the up having more than doubled compared to last month (from 20% to 52% of all scam e-mails).

Clearswift strangest spam of the month

Use your computer to investigate almost anyone! Find out what's in your FBI file. Check out an employee, a neighbor or your daughter's date!

About the Spam Index

The spam categorization statistics were extracted from the millions of spam e-mails harvested by Clearswift's seed accounts on a weekly basis. They are collated and analyzed using Clearswift's spamActive service, which is an integral component of the multilayered anti-spam protection offered by MIMEsweeper for SMTP 5.1. Updated eight times daily, spamActive routinely extracts spam terms, sender domains, URLs and subject lines, which can be automatically downloaded to update customers' e-mail policies.

About Clearswift

Clearswift secures content and protects against digital attacks by enforcing security policies that increase productivity, reduce IT costs and create a safer business environment. Its world-leading business is founded on providing Total Content Security for e-mail and Web.

The Internet is an invaluable business tool, but with it comes a harrowing collection of threats. Protecting against the circulation of inappropriate images and text, spam, breaches of confidentiality, and viruses is now mission critical.

Clearswift enables organizations to protect themselves against digital attacks, meet legal and regulatory requirements, implement productivity-saving policies and manage intellectual property passing through their network.

About MIMEsweeper(TM) for SMTP 5.1

MIMEsweeper for SMTP 5.1 is the most comprehensive enterprise class e-mail content security solution available in the market, delivering the best scalability and robustness anywhere. It is a best-of-breed solution that counters all content security threats -- spam, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and DOS attacks -- while allowing companies to remain compliant and meet best practice standards.

MIMEsweeper allows consistent policy definition and enforcement, through automated policy replication. This new version incorporates a "roles-based" approach to administration, too, moving mail management from back office to the front office. This allows, for example, the HR department -- rather than IT -- to implement company mail policy on, say, profanity, sexism or racism. Its unique approach to system management allows for hierarchical devolvement of duties to multiple administrators. IT managers can delegate specific responsibilities, such as server monitoring, access to particular quarantine areas, and reporting, to the most appropriate administrators or department, therefore spreading the load of administration and significantly reducing the time it takes to process blocked e-mails.

About e-Sweeper(TM)

e-Sweeper is a managed e-mail content security solution for service providers. Experienced professionals handle protection from content threats at the e-mail gateway, freeing the organization from the cost of implementing the hardware, software and administration expertise necessary to effectively stop the myriad content security threats.