For the past month, Valentine's day spam attacks have dramatically increased. Pushdo, Waledac and Donbot are among those spambots we have observed sending out love-themed spam attacks. Here are some examples of Valentine's day subject lines used by spambots:
Pushdo subject lines
Waledac subject lines.
Spammers routinely exploit special events such as Valentine’s day to sneak spam or malware past filters and Internet users alike. The key with much of this malicious love-themed spam is to play up to recipient’s desires to receive declarations of love from anonymous valentines. It presents the perfect opportunity for spammers to reach Internet users when people are actually looking to open messages from total strangers. Here are some examples of malicious Valentine’s spam messages:
Donbot spam sample
Pushdo spam sample
Waledac spam sample
While Pushdo and Donbot are more focused on ads for male enhancement drugs and pornographic material, Waledac is focusing on building up its bot network which was first seen last December 2008 using Christmas-themed spam and started to use love-themed subject lines just last month . As you can see from the above Waledac spam sample, the link points you to a website with a clickable image (see below).
Links from this website will download a copy of Waledac worm.
Pushdo and Donbot spam contains link with ad contents.
Please be wary this Valentine’s day and err on the side of caution. Avoid opening Valentine’s day e-card messages unless you can clearly identify and trust the sender.
