New Spam Stunt

I came across a spam email today that used a new trick to sneak past the filters. I wish I could say our spam control system caught it - but it didn't.

Please read downward!

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http://10.0.5.1/greatdeal.php?id=5232552

Needless to say, the development team is giving this one a good look. It's a given that some spam will periodically make it past the email spam filter. Fortunately with fuzzy logic, it's not necessary to have perfect detection. It's possible to make a reasonable "guess" that something doesn't look right. This is then factored in with other data to generate a 'score' for the message. The score ultimately determines which messages are blocked, and which are let through.

Updated versions of the product feature revisions and additions to these rules. As spammers adopt new techniques, the antispam program is continually modified to compensate for them.

One convenient thing about spam from a detection standpoint is that it pretty much has to have a URL. Without a working link back to a website, it's very difficult to get people to buy anything. A phone number would likely be shut-down quickly with irate callers.

A lot of URL's in low-caliber spam like this have certain patterns. For instance, have you ever seen a legitimate .BIZ or .INFO website? Sites given as IP addresses are also highly suspect.

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