No, we’re not talking about the canned meat made largely from pork! Spam is an inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list to broadcast the same message to a large number of people who didn’t ask for it. It’s unsolicited "junk" e-mail sent to bulk email accounts to promote products or services. As email costs close to nothing to send, many people have taken this as an invitation to send as much as they can to as many people as they can. Spam is annoying and time consuming. The bad part of spam is that it can be fraudulent, deceptive and can cheat consumers out of their money.
Phishing is not something you do with grandpa on Seneca Lake; it is one of the fastest growing online frauds today. Phishing is a form of spam used to deceive you into disclosing your credit card numbers, bank account information, social security numbers, passwords and any other personal information. You may have received one of these emails recently from “Huntington Bank" or “Citibank”. The email message will say that you need to “update” or validate” your account information. The message directs you to a Web site that looks like a legitimate organization’s site. In reality, this is a bogus site used to trick you into divulging your personal information so your identity can be stolen. Spoofing is the technique used to make a message appear as if it is coming from an address that did not originate the message.
And no, Spyware isn't something used by James Bond; it software installed on your computer without your knowledge, permission or consent for the purpose of gathering information about you or your organization. This information is relayed or sold to advertisers which can increase your likelihood of spam. Spyware can be transferred via spam emails or can be contained in freeware, shareware, games or screensaver downloads from the Internet. You may even unsuspectingly agree to the installation of spyware via click of the mouse to a licensing terms and conditions.
The following are some Spam statistics from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC):
Two out of three spam e-mail messages contain false information.
66 percent of spam surveyed likely violated federal law through some sort of deceptive business practice
Over 40% of Internet traffic at any time is a result of Spam.
Spammers obtain email addresses by buying lists from brokers who have “harvested” addresses from Internet newsgroup postings, chat rooms, websites, and online services’ membership directories. The spammers then use special software to send hundreds of thousands – even millions – of email messages with just one click of the mouse.
Spam’s Impact on MCC
Spam, phishing and spyware have impacted MCC on many different levels. They have an impact on users productivity due to time spent deleting spam and phishing emails. Spyware causes an array of problems with your PC such as: slowdowns, crashes and generating numerous pop ups and errors. The MCC technical staff has been inundated with job requests to clean spyware off of PCs throughout the college. Spam puts a strain on the Internet and on MCC’s network resources. It consumes our bandwidth and fills our email disk storage reserves. Each night ETS backs up all of our email accounts to tape. This takes additional time and storage for each night’s backup.
This is the first of a series of four articles on Spam. In the next articles we will look into what actions MCC has taken to filter, block and prevent the proliferation of spam and spyware; what you can do to prevent becoming a victim of spam, phishing and spyware; and MCC’s future plans regarding spam.
Communications and Network Services
Educational Technology Services
02/28/2005 |