Top 5 Grabbed From The Headlines Spam Campaigns

A favorite technique of spammers is to grab stories making headlines and use them to create spam messages. The idea is to lure people interested in getting what they think is exclusive or top secret info on the story. It’s been effective for years and is also used to poison search engine results. Here’s a look at the top campaigns that used this technique.

1. Haiti Earthquake/Japan Disaster
   Spammers didn’t waste any time taking advantage of the earthquakes that ravaged both countries. Messages asking for donations to fake charities claiming to be set up to help survivors, or offering videos of the tsunami and devastation quickly began flooding the net.
2. Royal Wedding
   Britain’s Prince William wed his long time girlfriend Kate Middleton today. As soon as the engagement was announced, the spam started pouring out, claiming to offer pics of the wedding gown, the prince’s bachelor party, and deals on replicas of Kate’s engagement ring, which once belonged to Lady Diana.
3. 9/11
   As hard as it may be to believe, just a mere hour after the United States was rocked by multiple terrorist attacks, spam messages exploiting them began to appear. These messages claimed to have exclusive footage, insider info, or information on donating to a charity set up for the survivors. The links in the messages led to malware, phishing sites, and the infamous Canadian Pharmacy.
4. Michael Jackson’s Death
   When the music icon died suddenly of cardiac arrest on June 25^th, 2009, most major social networking sites and instant messaging services crashed under the load. Even Google faltered as search volumes skyrocketed. Spammers took advantage of the huge audience by pumping out spam messages claiming to have the singer’s autopsy photos, footage showing his dead body in the ambulance, even videos claiming to offer proof he faked his death. Most lead to malicious sites pushing fake anti-virus software and other types of malware.
5. World Cup
   Soccer’s world cup championship is a highly anticipated event and spammers do what they can to grab some of that audience.  Most of the messages offer fake tickets to the games or replica goods and memorabilia.

Always be sure to check the URL of any links that you click and ensure that your anti-spam software is up-to-date so that it can warn you of any malware sites.