Spam yesterday and today

Spam is illicit mail sent by spammers with the aim of unintentionally bombarding the user’s servers and inboxes. It is mainly used to promote certain types of products: doping products, medicines, etc. Spam is also used for fraudulent purposes: email address harvesting, phishing, bank fraud, etc. It is frequently used by spammers because of its low cost. The chances of return are also high after a mass mailing.

Even for the uninitiated, it’s not difficult to recognize spam as it lands in users’ inboxes without warning. Spam comes in many forms. The best-known and oldest are undoubtedly those that promise their target audience wonders: easy ways to earn money, inexpensive drugs online, and so on. Another example is spam, which takes the form of an e-mail sent to the user’s home address by mistake, or one which announces from the outset that the e-mail in question is not spam.

Once spam filters were able to stop text spam, spammers tried to diversify their approach. Other forms of spam that are harder to pin down are image spam, PDF spam, excel spam and MP3 spam. A quarter of all spam in circulation in 2006 was in the form of images, as the anti-spam software of the time was unable to detect the messages mentioned in them. The other three forms of spam were launched in 2007. They are sent by spammers as attachments to standard e-mail messages.

In recent years, other new forms of spam have taken over. They can be recognized by the use of certain keywords. The best known is spam using the word “newsletter”. Spammers use them to promote their products. Some spam messages encourage users to “subscribe” to several newsletters. Those who do so risk having their name and address added to the spammer’s database. Next, we can distinguish spam containing malware. Once the user presses “click”, his or her computer will be infected and can be remotely controlled by hackers. There are also scams that signal the possession of a colossal sum of money that needs to be transferred abroad. Most of them come from Nigeria, and are housed in another country for greater credibility. Spam containing the word “buy” can also cause trouble for users. They will be able to pay for counterfeit goods or medicines without seeing their color.

The most recent new forms of spam are undoubtedly those linked to social networks. The best-known form of spam is that which allows users to see who is viewing their profile. Several tens of thousands of members fell victim to this malicious code in a short space of time. Even after all the necessary steps have been taken, no list will appear on the user’s computer. On the other hand, the spammers had time to recover all their personal information.