{"id":714,"date":"2007-10-24T07:04:45","date_gmt":"2007-10-24T07:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2007\/10\/the-next-evolution-gfi-uncovers-mp3-spam\/"},"modified":"2015-09-09T19:39:52","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T11:39:52","slug":"the-next-evolution-gfi-uncovers-mp3-spam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2007\/10\/the-next-evolution-gfi-uncovers-mp3-spam\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Evolution &#8211; GFI Uncovers MP3 Spam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you remember a while back we mentioned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2007\/08\/pdf-image-attachment-spam-the-new-problem-with-e-mail\/\">PDF &#038; Image Attachment Spam &#8211; The New Problem with E-mail<\/a>, now we have another &#8216;innovation&#8217; in spamming..<\/p>\n<p>MP3 spam!<\/p>\n<p>It seems they are using it for the same old pump and dump tactics (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Microcap_stock_fraud\">Microcap stock fraud<\/a>) to artificially inflate stock prices then sell out fast.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Spammers are back with a new trick, this time round sending messages with MP3 attachments that contain the latest pump-and-dump stock scams.<\/p>\n<p>One sample identified this morning by GFI, was a heavily distorted 30-second MP3 file. A synthetic female voice was used to promote a particular stock. This voice is distorted to avoid filtering approaches based on the file signature.<\/p>\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3033787195489589\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Darknet Responsive Post Ad Links [previously link ad unit] -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3033787195489589\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"5456620019\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<p>Once again, spammers are taking advantage of the fact that the MP3 format is one of the most common in use today, another attempt at social engineering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I wonder what they are going to come out with next, really?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The spam is a short, 30-second MP3 file recorded at low bit-rate with a synthetic female voice promoting a particular stock; the voice heavily distorted to avoid signature-based anti-spam approaches (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gfi.com\/mes\/mp3spam-sample.mp3\">click here<\/a> [MP3] to listen to an edited sample of MP3 spam).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;MP3 spam is a natural progression from PDF and Excel spam whereby spammers are exploiting a new file format to be able to send spam. This is their latest attempt to evade anti-spam filters. There is also a social engineering aspect to this tactic because people frequently share MP3 files,&#8221; David Vella, Director of Product Management, said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Another thing to look out for anyway, perhaps start filtering mp3 attachments on the mail gateway, then they&#8217;ll start putting them in passworded zip files I guess..<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gfi.com\/news\/en\/mp3spam.htm\">GFI<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you remember a while back we mentioned PDF &#038; Image Attachment Spam &#8211; The New Problem with E-mail, now we have another &#8216;innovation&#8217; in spamming.. MP3 spam! It seems they are using it for the same old pump and dump tactics (Microcap stock fraud) to artificially inflate stock prices then sell out fast. Spammers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8437,20,25],"tags":[386,8866,172,385,114,609,796],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Darknet","author_link":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/author\/darknet\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}