New Spam Campaign Targets Unemployed;Exploits Twitter

Security experts have issued a warning about a new spam campaign that targets the unemployed and financially troubled and exploits Twitter to do it. The spam, being sent by the Donbot botnet, hawks “get rich quick” and work at home scams designed to get people to pay a fee for a useless program that claims to help them make money on the internet.

The spam messages use a variety of methods to get past spam filters. First, the message itself is an image rather than text so it can’t be analyzed by filters, and that image contains a link to a Twitter account. The spammers did this because they know Twitter would never be blocked due to its size and reputation. The image is of a fake newspaper article which gushes about how great the get rich program is.

These types of scams are rising as spammers take advantage of the 10.2% unemployment rate in the U.S. and of people desperate to make money in order to get out of financial problems. The timing of the new campaign also coincides with the holidays, which is a time when many people are looking for a quick way to make some extra cash.

Experts say the campaign is increasing. Within 24 hours of its beginning it accounted for 4% of the world’s total spam volume.