MP3 Spam - The New Buzz!

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New wave of Pump and Dump scam campaign is sweeping across Europe and United States, which uses attached MP3 files touting the stock of a particular company.

This looks like the new testament of the spammer fraternity. Proof to this is the new wave of Pump and Dump scam campaign sweeping across Europe and Unites States, which uses attached MP3 files touting the stock of a particular company, say Security Experts at the AntiVirus, AntiSpam and Content Security firm MicroWorld Technologies.

Some attachments are named after Elvis, Beatles, Carrie and Fergie in the typical Social Engineering style, while some others are named as oursong.mp3, dadsong.mp3, coolringtone.mp3 and listentothis.mp3. Once you download the file and play it, what you get to hear is a female voice speaking in British accent about the market prospects of a Canadian company!

“The quality of the sound file is kept poor in order to make it smaller in size, and it’s not easy to understand what the spammer is trying to tell unless you try hard,� says Manoj Mansukhani, Head - Global Marketing, MicroWorld. “It’s quite unlikely that someone will

get all fired up and run the next moment to buy the stock of the firm promoted in this spam. What I see is, in their bid to escape spam filters, spammers are trying out new file types with no discretion�.

Men behind Pump and Dump campaigns buy shares of companies not doing well at cheap rates and soon start sending out millions of spam mails across the world to inflate their prices. The trick lies in the huge volume of mails and even if a negligible percentage of the recipients fall for the flimflam, the conmen’s purpose will be served. As soon as the price of the stock goes up, they sell it off, making a fortune in the bargain.

To filter spam, MicroWorld employs several technologies like MX/A DNS Record Verification, Reverse DNS, X-Spam Rules Check, Sender Policy Framework, RBLs and a revolutionary technology called Non Intrusive Learning Patterns. This self-learning and adaptive technology quickly recognizes and blocks new spam types like mp3 files.