Spreadsheets latest spam message carriers

XLS files follow PDFs as junk email ad vector.

After the image spam deluge and the recent wave of spams carrying their messages in PDF files, the latest trend seems to be spreadsheets in Microsoft's XLS format, as used by the popular Excel spreadsheet program.

ECC October 08 (Contra Deal)

Numerous campaigns have been reported using the file format to carry standard spam advertising pushing pharmaceuticals and 'pump-and-dump' stocks. Files in the spreadsheet format, in widespread use as a vehicle for business data, are sent as an attachment in an attempt to bypass text-scanning spam filters, but instead of the usual tables of figures the contents are garish advertising, generally strewn with the usual poor grammar and spelling. Some have also been seen using the zip archive format to compress the data and further complicate detection.

Examples of the spammed spreadies can be found at Trend Micro here, at Sophos here and at McAfee here.

25 July 2007

Tags:    del.icio.us  digg this! digg this


Poll

Should anti-virus software be free for personal use?
Yes
No
I don't know

Leave a comment
View 46 comments

Jobs Recruit Sidebar

Virus Bulletin

In this month's magazine:
  • Public liability insurance for computer intrusion
  • VB100 December 2008 - Windows Vista x64
  • Anti-unpacker tricks - part one
  • Repercussions of dynamic testing
  • Frame4: in the picture
  • Fighting phishing at the browser level
Virus Bulletin 12 2008
Subscribe now!
Virus Bulletin currently has 144,557 registered users.