Posted by Virus Bulletin on Aug 8, 2007
Heavy stock scam barrage ups spam levels 30%.
A major PDF pump-and-dump campaign has been reported, with massive numbers of mails spammed out. According to spam watchers at Sophos, the campaign has been responsible for a 30% rise in the number of spams spotted in the past 24 hours, and has significantly affected the share price of the company being promoted.
The spammed emails carry a PDF recommending recipients invest in Prime Time Group, who sell wireless products. Unprecedented volumes of spam, sent from a botnet of hijacked systems, have been reported from around the world by Sophos' network of spam labs. The share price of the company, on the New York Stock Exchange, has risen over 60%since the first reports of the spam bombardment yesterday afternoon.
'It seems incredible that people are still falling for this,' said John Hawes, Technical Consultant at Virus Bulletin. 'Investing hard-earned money in stocks because they've been hyped by a spammed email is clearly a foolish move. Email users and administrators need to ensure that they're using spam filters to minimise the impact of this kind of campaign, and people really need to get the message that unsolicited email should be disregarded out of hand. Whether it's advertising suspect goods or services, or promising easy money in the form of share tips, lottery windfalls or unclaimed millions in African banks, spam never has anything useful to offer.'
More details on the latest pump-and-dump campaign can be found at Sophos here.
Posted on 08 August 2007 by Virus Bulletin
