28 May 2008 - 10:31Spammers Replace Male Enlargement & Performance Pills With Cheap Knock-Off Products

Until recently, the majority of spammers relied on messages selling male enlargement and sexual performance pills. However, the new trend appears to be promoting items such as inexpensive jewelry, knock-off watches and pens.

Marshal TRACE’s security researchers report that the recent increase in the sale of such products has finally broken the two-year abundance of health-related spam that has been flooding the inboxes of email users worldwide. Until recently, the sale of health products comprised approximately 75 to 80% of the total Internet spam. The emergence of product spam reveals how much the spam market has increased in terms of sophistication.

Bradley Anstis, Marshal’s Vice President of Products, explains that the significance of this new trend of spam that promotes software and jewelry products; it reveals an awareness on the part of the spammers regarding the purchasing patterns of customers and their preference for a certain type of product.

The percentage of health-related spam selling pharmaceutical products and herbal medicines has continued to decrease from 80 to 45% since January 2008. On the other hand, product spam promoting items such as replica clothing and watches and pirated software has increased from 12 to 46%.

Both types of spam comprise more than 90% of the total spam. This new trend has been initiated by a group of prominent spammers. Because they control such a large number of botnets, they are able to alter the worldwide preference for spam products.

Prominent botnets such as Srizbi, Pushdo and Mega-D feature in the latest trend of spam. Spammers use them to send remarkable amounts of spam promoting replica products, and the items reveal a surprisingly high rate of consistency. Spam goods are being promoted under brand names such as Herbal King, Canadian Pharmacy, Prestige Replicas and Exquisite Footwear.

Marshal believes that this current shift away from health-related spam to product spam reveals that spammers have recognized the trust felt by consumers for the new type of replica products being promoted.