With most corporations deploying strict anti-spam filters, spammers are looking to find new tricks to make their spam effective. Traditionally spammers have been loath to use attachments because of the large file size and additional time it takes to send out. Also, some email programs automatically block attached documents for security purposes.
“Spammers have traditionally avoided emailing spam as an attached Word document because not everyone has Word and it makes the size of the email larger than normal, making it less efficient to distribute in large volumes,” Bradley Anstis, Marshal’s Director of Product Management, told ITWire.com.
“However, spammers now realize that fewer regular spam messages are getting through anti-spam filters,” Anstis added. “They are turning to new ways of trying to circumvent them. In this case, they are accepting the penalty of increasing the message size in order to get more spams through the filters.”
According to Marshal, this new spam attempts to disguise itself as a common business email, which increases the chance it will be opened and read. The actual email body contains little to no text and the Word document features the spam message.
Marshal first identified this new type of spam on Aug. 17. The firm has indicated that the spam is being sent from different countries on zombie PCs.
