Latest Spam Designed Only To Annoy Spamhaus

Email

from the getting-desperate dept

The spammers have been getting angry lately, because it appears that the work of many anti-spammers is actually somewhat effective. So, instead of focusing on, perhaps, figuring out a way to market legitimate products without pissing off just about everyone, the spammers are spending their time trying to piss off anti-spam organizations. Unfortunately, some of these attacks have worked, and anti-spam sites have been shut down. The latest trick, though, isn’t designed to do much other than to annoy Steve Linford of Spamhaus. A spammer is sending out spam, saying that you’ve successfully ordered a CD full of child-porn and will be charged $100/month for it. They say that if the order is a mistake, to contact them immediately – and, of course, the address they give is a Spamhaus email. This is one step up from the typical joe job of just sending out spam email with spoofed “from” headers of someone the spammer doesn’t like. While those attacks lead the “target” to get bounces and a few angry replies, this version is specifically designed to make people fire back. It’s just that they’re firing back at the wrong target. Another article about this tactic says that this is a victory of sorts, because it means that the anti-spam groups like Spamhaus are clearly having an impact on the war against spam. If Spamhaus wasn’t making life more difficult for spammers, why would they bother attacking them? Update: According to the Reuters report on this story, the only people who are receiving this email are those who were first infected with a virus that launches its own denial of service attack against Spamhaus (and others).