Spam and Goggle Docs...

June 2008

Spammers exploit Google Docs. Spam levels jumped in May to 76.8 percent of all emails sent globally, according to new monitoring data. MessageLabs’ latest Intelligence Report attributed this hike to a change of tactics in which spammers are moving away from a reliance on email attachments. Spammers are instead moving towards the exploitation of free mainstream hosted services such as Google Docs, Google Calendar and Microsoft SkyDrive. “The savvy and accurate cyber-criminals of today seem to have abandoned the attachments tactic that was so innovative in late 2007 and are exploiting free hosted applications which have become mainstream in 2008,” said the chief security analyst at MessageLabs. “The spammers are taking advantage of the fact that these services are free, provide ample bandwidth and are rarely blacklisted,” he said, adding, “This is one more addition to the growing list of ways in which the spammers have succeeded in outsmarting traditional detection devices.” MessageLabs intercepted spam emails in May which contained links to spam contained in documents hosted on the Google Docs environment. Traditional spam filters do not block links to the Google Docs domain, and spammers are using this to their advantage and even tracking their success through Google Analytics. Spammers are also using Microsoft’s SkyDrive shared file hosting service. Spam generated using this technique accounted for one per cent of all unsolicited mail in May.