Spam
Spam and How to Resist It
When most people think of spam, they think of the small tin of processed meat that grew in popularity during World War II. But in the computer world, spam is not popular at all, except for cybercriminals.
Spam is any form of communication that is sent out in randomly to as many targets as possible. Think of it as digital junk mail. Even though it was not called spam yet, the first spammed messages were actually distributed over telegraph lines in the late 1800s after Western Union began to allow messages to be sent to multiple destinations. Although private telegraph ownership was rare, those people would receive an occasional advertising message.
Spam actually gets its name from the Monty Python's Flying Circus television show. In one episode, a group of Vikings would continually interrupt one scene by singing the word “spam” over and over again, and disrupt the conversation the people in the main focus of the scene were having. The link from this scene to the digital world came in the mid-1980s when local bulletin board systems and Internet relay chat was popular. Sometimes when people were trying to have a conversation in a chat room, someone may have written a line of text that someone else wanted to scroll off of everyone's screens by quickly typing in lines of gibberish or from quotes from that Monty Python sketch. It also referred to a block of text – usually an advertisement – that someone would throw into the chat room, even though it had nothing to do with the conversation.
While spam in the chat-room era of the Internet was annoying (like Star Trek fans flooding a Star Wars chat room with Starship Enterprise chat) or sometimes offensive (advertisements to porn sites), they were no more harmful than that. However, as the Internet has grown to include e-mail and the World Wide Web, spam can endanger computers and cause financial harm to its targets. Spam is considered a form of malware for this reason.
Some legitimate businesses use spam e-mailing as part of their normal business practice, just as if they would send out a mass mailing to people they would think would be interested in their business. However, malware spam is used for illegal, for-profit purposes. Spam can also be delivered through instant messages and social networking sites, which can be even more dangerous, as these are targeting a much younger audience.
When is spam dangerous?
Just as in the chat-room days, some spam is simply just annoying, and pretty easy to spot and ignore. But many times, spam can be more than meets the eye. First of all, a spam e-mail can contain an attachment with a virus imbedded in it, infecting and damaging a computer, then seeking out ways to spread to other computers. This can be done by the user, passing the e-mail along unknowingly, or by a program that can turn the computer into a spambot, using the computer's e-mail program to distribute mass spam e-mails. A spam e-mail can also look like an e-mail from a friend, which contains a link that leads to an offensive or malicious Web site. This usually happens when a friend's computer was affected by a virus, and distributed the e-mail itself. Also, a spam e-mail message itself can be offensive or illegal (such as a pornographic image). Cybercriminals also use instant message programs to send out mass messages to people, trying to fool them into being a friend, only to turn out to be a spambot and infecting computers that way.
Other spammers target Web sites, specifically those that invite their visitors to post comments. Spammers will set up programs (known as bots) that will automatically find these sites and post spammed messages, which are usually advertisements, and many times fraudulent, offensive or lead to infected Web sites. Programs such as CAPTCHA were created to thwart these types of spam messages by requiring the poster to verify they're actually human by repeating a picture of two random words.
Can spam be stopped?
The U.S. Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 to attempt to stem the wave of pornographic or malicious advertising being sent via e-mails. The law had three basic parts:
- The message in the e-mail must be legitimate,
- The e-mail must be delivered by non-invasive methods, and
- The recipient must have a way to opt out of receiving any further communications from the sender.
However, this has put a strain on legitimate businesses that attempt to reach out to potential new clients through e-mails. Like the argument against gun control laws, legitimate advertisers will abide by these rules, causing them to miss chances for marketing with potential clients. Malicious spammers really don't care about the laws to begin with, so they ignore these laws and send their damaging or offensive material anyway.
Preventing spam
While there will always be spam, there are ways to try to prevent it. These include:
- Use subscription-based antivirus software – Products such as Norton 360 have superior anti-spam protections. Norton 360 software can monitor incoming e-mails and Instant messages, and determine if they've come from reputable sources. They can also tell if the links or attachments on any e-mail may have malicious sources as well.
- Modify behavior – Chain-type e-mails have cute, funny, or introspective e-mails, but many times, they are dangerous. No matter who sends them to you, never open them and never forward them on. Never click open e-mails or click on links from suspicious e-mails. And never follow a link from an advertisement when you don't recognize the business or it seems suspicious.