Page 30 - AeM_May_2017

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Retarus issues

warning about spam

wave claiming to offer

stock market tips

The security experts at Retarus are warning users about Spam filters outsmarted by numerous text varia-
a spam wave spreading quickly across email inboxes. tions
The email security provider has recently recorded a
sharp rise in the volume of messages proposing that The spammers also continually adapt and modify the
readers buy supposedly promising shares. By means of text in the spam messages. The company name, for
these investment recommendations, cyber criminals are instance, was written in full in messages at the begin-
trying to influence the share price of specific companies ning of the attack, while in more recent versions only
to their own advantage. the securities identifier “QSMG” is mentioned in a more
coded way. The recommendation to buy the stocks is
According to the global information logistics provider, in also substantiated in various ways: Some emails refer
the current wave of attacks, the email scammers are call- to a forthcoming takeover and others herald an amazing
ing for recipients to buy securities in the company Quest breakthrough in cancer research. So, for many conven-
Management Inc. Through this scam, the spammers are tional spam filters, these kinds of attacks are difficult to
not only profiting from a short-term rise in the share price identify in time, as they solely rely on searching for spe-
based on demand for the stocks, but also stand to bene- cific keywords. That’s why it is crucial to keep the signa-
fit from the subsequent crash by holding options. tures of the spam and virus filters always up to date,
Retarus’ specialists recommend.
That this logic works well proves a similar fraud attempt:
In March, the share price of InCaptcha Inc. initially sky- The human insecurity factor: heightened vigilance
rocketed during a four-day spam wave and then plum- essential
meted just as fast thereafter. The stocks recommended
in these types of spam emails are mostly so-called To safeguard themselves from the dangers of such
“penny stocks”, which are securities quoted at less than fraud attempts, it is also essential that users have in-
a dollar. creased levels of vigilance and check the plausibility of
messages more attentively. As with all scams, the
Fraudsters are using a world-wide botnet consisting “human factor” remains an important issue with spam
of 400,000 computers fraud. This means that companies need to take steps to
sensitize their staff about these kinds of attacks on a
Retarus’ systems alone filter out around 9.3 million of regular basis. In the best case, real-world examples
these types of spam emails on a daily basis. According should be used to heighten awareness and transparent,
to analyses done by the security experts, the current at- easy-to-follow guidelines should be provided for cases
tack is being carried out by a botnet which is estimated where suspicion arises.
to have hijacked 400,000 computers to do its dirty work.
In the current case, the spammers are proceeding ex- Where large amounts of data need to be transmitted
tremely insidiously, as the infected systems are not para- securely and reliably - irrespective of which communica-
lyzed by distributing huge volumes of messages, as is tion channels, interfaces, applications and devices –
usually the case. Instead, by limiting the transmission to Retarus comes in handy, as its services are soundly
a maximum of 50 emails per minute, their activities gen- based on a Global Delivery Network which includes the
erally remain under the thresholds at which IT adminis- company’s own data centers in Europe, the USA and
trators would become aware of them. the APAC region, as well as redundant carrier infra-
structure.◊
By MediaBUZZ

30 May 2017 - (Cyber) Security & Data Protection