PDF Spam Lived Fast and Died Young

8/31/2007

PDF spam first showed up in early summer of 2007. Initially the messages were overwhelmingly stock related, but soon split off into campaigns promoting pharmaceuticals and other goods.

I haven't received a single PDF spam message in about 72 hours. That's counting all email sent to me, including what my email spam blocker picked up. PDF spam appears to be in effect dead - at least for now. A mere few weeks ago it was flourishing.

According to one source, PDF spam hit roughly 30% of all spam around August 9th, 2007. That same source quotes experts as saying the reason for the decline may have been that efforts to manipulate stock prices via the spam just weren't working.

While PDF spam was largely architected to fool spam blocker applications, it did leave a characteristic readily recognizable by users. Most experienced netizens quickly learned to identify the spam's trademark attachments - and just ceased to open them.

No matter what the cause, the sudden cessation would suggest that a relatively few people were involved in the sending of the messages. While it's been well known that PDF spam has been connected to computers controlled by the Storm Worm, tracking down the people in charge may not be possible.

Examining trades of the effected stocks might offer some clues. However, with so many people receiving the scam email - it may be impossible to distinguish between those just, "along for the ride" and those attempting to orchestrate the operation.

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