Spammers turn to images
June 30, 2006
Spammers are increasingly using images to avoid detection, according to a new report.
Research from security firm IronPort Systems has found that the use of spam emails containing images incorporating both graphics and text have risen twelve-fold in the past year and that 78 per cent of such messages get through first and second generation filters.
As detection systems have become increasingly adept at filtering spam, the senders have resorted to sending messages that contain both graphics and text in a bid to negate filters that can only scan text files.
"With image-based spam techniques, spammers are using sophisticated methods of varying each image slightly with each spam attack," said Tom Gillis, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at IronPort.
"The changes are imperceptible to end-users and invisible to signature-based filters."
Image-based messages are now thought to account for some 12 per cent of all spam sent, which amounts to around five billion image-based emails each day.
