Internet Defense Technologies

Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

Often times when there is economic strife people will look for a get rich quick scheme, or buy more Lottery tickets than usual, or look for a great deal on something they are looking to buy.

In today’s economic and electronic times this means more Spam, more Spam, more Spam.

Spammers are predatory in that they don’t care who they solicit or what they solicit. They only care about their own bottom line. Not the American way, certainly not the way of a Republic, but it seems to be the growing trend in today’s modern world, an “all for one, one for none” type of an attitude, which helped with the economic collapse the world is experiencing today.

Recent surveys from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) suggest that 80% of consumers surveyed after visiting a Spam site or responding to a Spam message in the U.S. don’t think that it is possible to get a virus, mal-ware etc., from such a visit.

This “never going to happen to me” attitude is problematic because in fact it likely will happen to anyone clicking through to a dangerous site solicited by Spam.

Further, according to the survey, most people who think that they cannot be infected are the best targets because they don’t pay attention and look for problems in their system and therefore are in a “dangerous” position.

This is just the right mixture of real (but very old and no longer a problem) virus and a hoax. A friend of mine sent this to me (along with their entire address book) who didn’t bother editing the copy which says it was from her son (she has no son).

This is a hoax, not a real email and you should delete it.

As a note upfront: If you read the entire Snopes page this email links to, you would find at the bottom in reference to this exact email being sent around:

“The virus it references (i.e., the Mail Server Report worm) was a real one, but it’s neither new nor currently rampant (as claimed in the warning text), nor does it manifest itself in the fashion described (since the “symptoms” provided in the warning are merely a reworking of the text of an earlier virus hoax). All in all, that message doesn’t really merit the dire warning to “SEND A COPY OF THIS TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask the to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!”

The email being sent around:

Subject: Warning - READ IMMEDIATELY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HI ALL THIS was sent to me by our son who is in charge of the computers for the state of Florida — whenever he receives anything like this it is a warning to the State as well as all us little people –

VERY IMPORTANT , PLEASE READ THIS

Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on.

This information arrived this morning, Direct from both Microsoft and Norton

Please send it to everybody you know who has Access to the Internet.

You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail titled ‘Mail Server Report’

If you open either file, a message will appear on your screen saying: ‘It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful…’

Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And the person who sent it to you will gain access to your Name, e-mail and password. This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the anti virus software’s are not capable of destroying it.

The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself ‘life owner’.

PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!

THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES.

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/mailserver.asp

Alan Ralsky is the Michael Jordan of the Spam world, in that he is prolific and very influential in the community.

Alan has made public appearances in a variety of media sources, including the Detroit Times, which makes him stand out from the seedy Spammer crowd. Not to defame him, but just to illustrate the defiance he wages, it is not unlike a child molester wearing a T-Shirt declaring himself such, as was the case a few years ago with the guy who declared himself over the net. And while it is appreciated and frankly both should be branded it nonetheless leaves little one can do about it when the crimes are veiled.

According to the Detroit Times, Ralsky pled guilty to various charges relating to Spam and agreed to testify against other Spammers in an effort to truncate his own sentence, which is why his name has come back to the forefront of mainstream media.

For years there has been an ongoing Federal investigation into the crimes of Spammers, including Ralsky, and U.S. Attorney Terrance Berg seems to consider this recent coup to be the modern day Al Capone case in that they always get their man!

Every year or two, Ferris Research updates its estimates for the total cost of spam, earlier this year they did the 2009 estimates .

Their estimates: "Worldwide, spam will cost us all $130 billion; in the U.S. alone, $42 billion. That’s a 30% increase over our 2007 estimates, which themselves were a 100% increase over our 2005 figures."

They further explain the breakdown of where this is costing money:

• User productivity cost (deleting spam, looking for false positives, etc.): 85%
• Help desk cost (IT helping end users deal with spam): 10%
• Spam control software/hardware/service (licensing fees, amortized capital costs, etc.): 5%

Well with Total Mail Defense making it so you have don’t have to delete spam or look for false positives that reduces that amount by 85%.

I am feeling pretty good about our assistance in helping the economy by reducing the money wasted.