Strange new spam

[squaregoldfish]

Lazyweb mode engaged!

Hi all,

In the last couple of days I've started receiving a new type of spam message (my spam filter isn't picking them up yet). All they contain is a news headline in the subject, and another, completely different headline in the body. That's it - no links, no attached images, nothing.

For the life of me, I can't figure out the purpose of these messages. Is anyone else getting them, and does anyone know what their aim is, since they have no payload?

I haven't yet tried tracking down the source address of the emails. I'll be giving that a go soon.

Cheers,
Steve.

[billgoldberg]

Some testing out his new botnet?

lol

Maybe someone (you don't mention what email service you use) is filtering out the links or something?

[3rdalbum]

I used to get spam that had no visible purpose; I have no idea what it's all about.

Are these headlines about shares? Some spammers try to spread news about a particular stock that they have invested in, to try and raise or lower the price of those shares.

[3rdalbum]

(sorry)

[JackieChan]

lol

[squaregoldfish]

The headlines have nothing to do with shares - they're completely random.

Example:

Subject: Ancient Statue Discovered In Greece
Message: FAA: Children among 17 dead in Montana plane crash

That's it. The entire contents of the email. There's nothing untoward in the headers, and nothing else in the email (I use Google Mail, and it doesn't remove links automatically).

The From addresses of the emails are random too - fairly standard spam behaviour, of course.

Steve.

[suitedaces]

Two news stories for the price of one! :p

[squaregoldfish]

I suppose I should be grateful really. :)

[p_quarles]

The e-mails containing disaster news have often been associated with the spread of botnets. It's very likely that these messages contained malicious attachments which were scanned and removed by some intermediary machine.

[almigi]

I remember 7 years ago or so when I was less computer savvy, I received an email with a subject like "NASA Discovers New Planet" or something to that effect.

If memory serves correctly, this email was sent to my Yahoo account, and I was using Internet Explorer. I opened the email, and if I remember correctly, clicked on what looked like a link to a news story. Big mistake. Internet Explorer kept opening up again and again, and within a couple of seconds, I had 30+ instances of Internet Explorer running on my computer.

I think I had to reboot my computer just to regain control.

Of course, that was back then, something like this wouldn't happen to me today (at least I hope not :lolflag:).

[sydbat]

The e-mails containing disaster news have often been associated with the spread of botnets. It's very likely that these messages contained malicious attachments which were scanned and removed by some intermediary machine.I think this is the right answer.