Article:		Spam Busters
Subject:		New SPAM Technique?
Date:		2003-04-17 14:28:51
From:		anonymous2
I'm seeing SPAM now arriving with none of the typical SPAM buzzwords in a very legitimate looking format but with an embedded .jpg picture which includes their SPAM pitch in the picture itself. None of the content filters I've tried will catch it. Have SPAMMERs beaten content filters?

Showing messages 1 through 2 of 2.

• New SPAM Technique?
  2003-04-24 07:17:33  Derek Vadala | [Reply | View]
  
  
  I was giving a talk on securing email transports yesterday and this occurred to me right in the middle of it. I'm guessing that if a spammer simply attached a reasonably sized JPEG to an email and perhaps included a minimum of unremarkable text, that it would be difficult to catch spam of this nature. In fact, I've noticed that a lot of porn-related spam is of this very nature, and Spam Assassin almost never tags it.
  
  Perhaps something like:
  
  Image attached.
  
  [8228320822.jpg]
  
  

• New SPAM Technique?
  2003-04-23 21:27:12  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  If the jpg is truly embedded, then it will probably slip thru. But, I bet that even if it is embedded, there are links to the spammers site somewhere in the email. Those will get caught by the good bayesian filters like Popfile.