Email Spam - Email Spam Protection

Email Spam is defined as the sending unsolicited bulk emailing to thousands of recipients, often with identical or near identical content. It is illegal in most countries and by definition occurs without the permission or consent of the recipient.

The spam industry is a constantly evolving arms race. As spam detectors and spam filters become more and more powerful, the spammers become more and more wily, resorting to increasingly deceptive techniques to harvest emails and push their products. When anti-spam vendors started to use heuristics to detect spam (a way of describing the nature of a spam email, rather than the actual spam email itself), the spammers started to copy random passages of books into the emails so that the percentage of common 'spammy' text was decreased. When that failed, the spammers sent their emails as graphics or pictures so that email text readers used by the anti-spam industry were defeated.

So how do you get on a spammers list?

Usually in one of the three ways;

What can we do to protect ourselves from email spam?

Protection at a Personal level

Don't click on the emails. Don't even open the emails! And certainly NEVER buy anything from spam emails. Invest in a good virus checker and remover and always keep it updated.

• Even if you open an email without replying to it, the spammer can be notified that your email was opened. They do this by imbedding a link usually attached to a picture that has a unique name. When the email gets opened the email program tries to load the picture from their server, telling them that that file was accessed. And your email was the only email sent out that would do that.
• If you buy something from a spammer, then you are giving them a very valid reason to send a million more spam emails. It also could land your email address on more spam lists.
• Never reply to a spammers email trying to 'Opt-Out'. All this will do is tell the spammer that they have a live 'active' email address, and while they may take you off that spam list, they will put you on 20 others!
• Have more than one email address, and make one of them sacrificial! The email address that you sacrifice is the one you give to acquaintances, enter in prizes and draws, and make public in online communities. Sit back and wait for it to be spammed. Free email addresses are readily available from Google, Hotmail and Yahoo. Your other 'real' address you keep only for close friends and family members. Tell them as well about this technique so that they know which your public email address is and which your private one is. They should do this too . When your 'public' email address gets too spammed out, then just sign up for another free one!
• If you have a website make sure it has protection against email harvesting.

Protection at a Corporate level

Employee education is paramount. Employees must be made aware that filling in information from company computers on dodgy websites must be avoided. All suspicious email should NOT be opened, and any such instances should be directed to the corporate IT department or security.

The other obvious way is to protect the employees from themselves. This means up to date Firewalls, Virus Scanners and Removers, strong Security Policies, and good Malware (adware, spyware, etc) Removal Utilities, also trap as much spam email as possible at the mail server, before it reaches the employee.

Protection at a Government or State level

Strong laws are required that make the penalties for spamming harsh. In 2003 the Ban on Deceptive Unsolicited Bulk Electronic Mail Act of 2003 was passed that allowed the prosecution of spammers (bulk emailers) to be tried under RICO legislation. RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) laws were created in the US in 1970 to take down the Mob (Mafia). They allow the confiscation of all illegally derived assets from an individual or organization including houses, boats, cars, planes, currency and any other monetary instruments. So the US takes spamming very seriously indeed! The drawback of this is that the internet knows no boundaries, and spammers can exist as readily outside the USA as inside its borders.