RSSTrump, 'Penis Pump' Top Spam of 2005
by Ed Oswald
AOL on Wednesday released its annual top ten most commonly sent junk e-mails, revealing that spammers are becoming increasingly more sophisticated to dupe users into falling for their schemes. It also included an increase in SOS, or special order spam.
Special order spam differs from traditional unsolicited e-mail in the way that it attempts to trick a user by pretending to be from a friend, or as part of a legitimate transaction. In fact, six of the top 10 spam messages fall into this category. This compares to two last year, and none in 2003.
At the top of the list were spam mails that use popular recognition such as "Donald Trump Wants You - Please Respond." This was followed by ads for a "Penis Patch" and a "Body Wrap" that promises a loss of six to 20 inches in one hour.
Other notable spam subjects from the top ten included personalized e-mails saying they've sent the user to the wrong site, faked shipment notifications, and ads for Rolex watches.
There were some positives in the AOL survey. Complaints to AOL over spam mail have declined 75 percent since peaking in late 2003. The service credits the drop to increased protection provided by filtering technology, as well as litigation and law enforcement actions.
AOL blocked 1.5 billion spam e-mails in 2005, a slight increase over 2004. What may be the most striking of all is the amount of spam. According to AOL, eight out of every 10 e-mails received is now blocked as spam.
Stiles said there are several steps that users can take to better protect themselves from the dangers. First and foremost, users should protect their personal information online and not respond to spam mails in any way. Next, don't click on links within spam e-mails, and if something looks suspicious, you should report it.
Finally, keeping spam filters up to date will also catch more spam. Stiles said it might be a good idea to add the top 10 subject lines to keyword and content filters to catch more junk e-mail.
"When it comes to protecting your in box, consumers should adopt a 'code red' mentality for 2006, because ultimately their personal identity is at stake," Stiles warned.
11 Comments
I see almost the same exact spam rates as AOL, our average was about 75%.
Score: 0
You mean all the p.e.n.i.s pump, pills, lotions, potions, and bible emails were spam all along? I thought they were trying to tell me something!
Score: 0
They are! They are more worried about your p**** size than you. It is a group of old ladies that work for AOL and sit all day in a dark room thinking of ways in which to enlighten men on what is important in life.
ha ha
Score: 0
I just left a company where I was the Mail Security admin. My main job was anti-spam and anti-virus and about 80-85% of our mail was spam. But thanks to Barracuda less then 1% actually made it to the users mailbox. Blocking spam can be a challange but a fun challange and I can honestly say that is what I miss the most of that job.
Score: 0
So you were the mail security admin...and blocking spam was what you miss most about the job...so you pretty much just miss your job since blocking spam was your primary focus...:)
Anyway I've tested out barracuda about a year ago and didn't like it...I saw them and interop a few weeks ago and nothing has changed. I personally don't like their bayesian filter very much....I'm sure it can work pretty well if given enough time to learn. I use brightmail and I barely ever look at the thing...catches 99% of our spam and had about 1 false postive this year and it was cought for having a million threads in the email.
Score: 0
We use Barracuda at my school, although I don't manage it. It seems to do a very good job, but it still lets a lot of junk through, because we get a lot of users on legitimate mailing lists, and they tend to get angry when they're blocked. Unfortunately, we don't have the staff to manage it fulltime, so we have a compromise.
Score: 0
About Oct Barracuda totally re-wrote their Bayesian filter and it is no longer SpamAssasin but actually their own product now. When the new Bayesian filter came out we watched the amount of spam getting by the Cuda drop even more. Their filter is much much better then it was when we started with them back in May.
Score: 0
I had pretty much the same experience with barracuda a while ago. It blocked about 30% less spam than the system that was previously in place, so it didn't last long =).
Score: 0
""What we're seeing is that spammers are far more organized and professional than ever before," AOL Postmaster Charles Stiles said."
He calls them professional?
Score: 0
That's because they all work for AOL.
Score: 0
hahaha..
Score: 0