The spam It can be defined as spam messages that are sent mainly electronically. They are delivered without having been requested by the recipient, and it is usually commercial promotion. There are several types of spam, such as email spam or social media spam. Those affected can go to designated contact points and seek help.
Spam detection
Spam has many characteristics by which it can be recognized. Such pointers in an email should warn you. In order to protect against damage caused by spam, the eye-catching characteristics of email messages should prevent attachments, etc. from being opened.
Greetings
Most spam emails do not contain a greeting. Phrases like "Dear customer" or "Dear sir" are used because the sender does not have the full names of the recipients. Professional companies, apart from this, have the full names of the clients and also address them with it. Thus, the lack of a greeting is often sufficient as an indication of a spam email.
Content
The content of spam messages is usually written in bad Spanish or grammatically incorrect translations generated with an online tool. They differ greatly from actual company communication. Reputable companies whose native language is not Spanish write their messages to Spanish-speaking clients in good Spanish.
Key terms
Specifically during the first spam periods, terms of a vulgar nature or terms from the medical field were often used. The most notorious commercial spam promotion comes from Viagra. To avoid spam filters, the applicable words can be modified. Alternative spellings would include. VIAGRA, V! Agra, Vi @ gr @ or VIAGRA.
Attachments
Spam attachments are dangerous. At this time, these emails are intended for cause damage to the recipient. An attachment opened by the recipient may contain malicious programs.
Files such as .pif, .exe, .xls, .ppt, and .docs are launched with one click. If an attachment is opened, the malicious program runs immediately. The purpose of some malicious programs is to spy on users and obtain their passwords. Phishing can also be initiated through attachments.
Email
A characteristic of spam is that they have an entire HTML body. This means that an extremely large font or font color can be used. The design of the email is much more colorful and eye-catching than the "normal" email.
Sender address and solution
If the sender is a worker of the company, the email address of this must be verified. There are usually cryptic sections with endings like @ aol.com, @ hotmail.com. It can also happen that friends have been victims of attacks and their email addresses are used as senders. This way, attachments or links from known senders should not be opened if there are any doubt about the authenticity of the content. You have to wonder if a friend would simply send an email of this type, with this style of language and this address, etc.
Links
Spam messages usually contain at least one link. Clicking this button shows the sender that the recipient's address is still active. This can result in an increase in spam messages. Other links may direct the recipient to a customer's website. The unsolicited sending of such commercial emails is, nevertheless, banned and punished. Links can also lead to sites that pose a high risk of being accessed by malicious software.
The ideal is that don't click in the links. However, spammers also mislead you with link texts. There may be a difference between the link text and the actual URL. Before clicking on a link, you must hover the mouse pointer over it. Depending on your browser settings, the actual URL will be displayed at the bottom. This address is easily recognizable as fake in the case of spam messages. It does not make sense and does not allow to draw conclusions about the real company.
The ending can also be revealing, because many of these addresses are registered abroad and their address ends in .ru for Russia, for example. Images can also be embedded as a link. The same applies here, check the destination url before clicking.
Types of spam
Spam messages are not only sent by email, but can also be sent as a personal message via social media or Skype. It can even be in the form of verbal communication over the phone.
Email spam
- Unsolicited bulk email
This is the most popular type of email spam. It consists of emails that are sent to the largest possible number of recipients. Such messages generally contain commercial promotion, but may also consist of hateful or missionary content.
- Unsolicited commercial email
These emails consist of commercial content, which is sometimes sent to individual recipients. Doubtful and cheap offers on sex, power, or illegal online gambling casinos are typical examples.
- Collateral spam, backscatter
For this case, the "non-delivery" messages are caused and assigned to a third absolutely uninvolved email address. The sender specifies it as the sender's address in advance.
Search engine spamming
In this case, an attempt is made to positively manipulate a search engine's evaluation algorithm through specific entries on foreign or own websites in order to achieve the best feasible positioning in the search results.
Phone spam
Communication via Internet phones and mobile phones can be disrupted by spam. If an affected person answers a phone call over the Internet, the audio data is played automatically. In mobile phone spam, unwanted short messages are usually sent or calls are made. Another version is ping calls. These generally only last a few seconds and prompt a call back, which is then very expensive for the caller.
Social media
In social media spam, network search alternatives are used primarily to reach specific target groups or individuals. There are also programs that want public profiles on social networks. It consists of contact requests sent to send messages. Fan pages or groups are another easy way to send spam messages.
These messages usually contain a link to a pornographic website, product advertisements or infect the PC of the person in question. One trick is to post messages on behalf of Facebook Security. The accusation is that the recipient has violated the guidelines and now has to confirm their profile with a link. The link leads to a phishing page. The data consulted does not go to Facebook, but to scammers. Along with the name, email address and password, credit card numbers are also required.
Spam via instant messaging
Spam also occurs with instant messaging services such as msn. Account names are often written on the Internet to allow others to connect. This means that scammers can also get the name and contact the person. An example is the message 'are you sure you haven't uploaded these photos? The recipient will land on a phishing page where they are supposed to enter the data.
How spam is distributed
Spam messages are not generally sent by spammers' servers. For this infected or remote-controlled servers are used. This affects poorly managed workstations and private computers. Another alternative used by spammers is distribution by foreign providers. These are, in particular, countries with a very low risk of prosecution or where complaints are ignored by the authorities, which are paid for by the corresponding spammer.
Origin of the data
Android app store
Spammers can create apps that schedule quickly and make sure they get bought. Since you must specify the correct name and email address when purchasing an application in the Google Play search engine, spammers will get a lot of data.
Trojans on Smartphones
Trojan apps, generally highly rated, access the entire cell phone phonebook and forward the data over the Internet. If the phone is synchronized with a PC, the data from the PC is also forwarded.
RRSS
In social networks like Facebook, it is feasible to offer third-party apps. Registered app developers can access Facebook user data, even if they haven't installed the app. Since it is feasible to impersonate a developer, spammers have another way to get a huge database of names and email addresses. If an application is simply installed, the user must agree to the data transfer.
Data leaks
Data breaches occur time and again in both big name companies and cloud services. In these cases, spammers have access to a large part of the data. At the same time, internal workers also have access to the data and sell it to spammers if the price is correct.
How to avoid spam and get help
Spam filters are a very popular and efficient measure against spam. Another opportunity is to create a temporary email address, which is always used when a service requests an email when logging in. To protect your contacts from spam, it is usually useful not to send email messages to a large number of contacts and to enter the contacts only in the bcc field. This prevents all recipients from seeing all addresses. It is essential not to reply to suspicious emails. This confirms the existence and regular use of this email address, which could result in an increase in spam. Since January 2007, complaints have been accepted by the Internet Complaints Office of the eco Association of the Internet Industry. Complaints about spam can be filed in Spain with the Spanish Agency for Data Protection, which carries out an accurate monitoring and review.
Impact of spam
Spam is causing serious damage to the global communications system. The additional data results in considerably more processing effort. At the same time, reading and sorting spam is expensive, spam filters have to be purchased and maintained, and costs are incurred for each transferred byte of spam, as ISPs often charge for their services based on the volume of spam. data transferred.
