Chain letter email reaps addresses
Fake research a harvesting trick by spammers.
An email widely spammed out in recent days claiming to be part of a research project into email use is in fact a scam
designed to gather large numbers of email addresses.
The email requests recipients forward all 'chain letter' type emails, complete and intact, to an email address
provided. This would allow the sender to not only confirm the email address of anyone who replies is 'live', but would
also pass on the scores of past recipients' details often included in the past history of chain letters, all valuable
data to spammers.
'This is another sneaky move by spammers,' said John Hawes, Technical Consultant at Virus Bulletin. 'Chain letters are
generally a bad idea, and sending them on to someone who contacted you via a spam is clearly likely to lead to more
spam.'
The full text of the email can be seen in this report from Sophos.
15 September 2006
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