Personalized malware?

[Jim Gilliland]

I get virus spam all the time. People are always sending me messages with
gibberish text and unsolicited attachments. In general, the text is a series of
generic sentences that make no sense whatsoever when taken as a whole. I'm sure
you've all seen them.

Today, though, I got a message that contained just this text:

"Place I ordered it from is now sold out. Choose the finest systems by Shure,
Sennheiser, AKG, Audio-Technica and more."

The message came with an attachment called "veranda.gif". Needless to say, I
didn't open it.

This is the first time I've ever seen a spammer/phisher/malware artist send a
text that was actually relevant to the interests of the recipient. Do you
suppose that this is a new trend? Personalized malware spam? Or is it just
coincidence?

[Six String Stu]

Considering that lots of the same sort of emails come addressed to me by my
first name or my email addy I'd say it's no longer a "new " trend. I started
getting them two months after I first got this ISP acct. and the number has
grown on a monthly basis.
It's been almost two years and I guess I get about 100 spams a day ten or so
of them are addressed in this way.
I've gone to search engines and web sites looking for specific pieces of
hardware only to find an email in my box a few days later with the product
mentioned in it's subject title.
Before ya know it that feeling of being watched wont just be paranoia ;-)

--
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Thanks so much to those who have responded.
"Jim Gilliland" > wrote in message
...
>I get virus spam all the time. People are always sending me messages with
>gibberish text and unsolicited attachments. In general, the text is a
>series of generic sentences that make no sense whatsoever when taken as a
>whole. I'm sure you've all seen them.
>
> Today, though, I got a message that contained just this text:
>
> "Place I ordered it from is now sold out. Choose the finest systems by
> Shure, Sennheiser, AKG, Audio-Technica and more."
>
> The message came with an attachment called "veranda.gif". Needless to
> say, I didn't open it.
>
> This is the first time I've ever seen a spammer/phisher/malware artist
> send a text that was actually relevant to the interests of the recipient.
> Do you suppose that this is a new trend? Personalized malware spam? Or
> is it just coincidence?
>

[Geoff]

Jim Gilliland wrote:
> I get virus spam all the time. People are always sending me messages
> with gibberish text and unsolicited attachments. In general, the
> text is a series of generic sentences that make no sense whatsoever
> when taken as a whole. I'm sure you've all seen them.
>
> Today, though, I got a message that contained just this text:
>
> "Place I ordered it from is now sold out. Choose the finest systems
> by Shure, Sennheiser, AKG, Audio-Technica and more."
>
> The message came with an attachment called "veranda.gif". Needless
> to say, I didn't open it.
>
> This is the first time I've ever seen a spammer/phisher/malware
> artist send a text that was actually relevant to the interests of the
> recipient. Do you suppose that this is a new trend? Personalized
> malware spam? Or is it just coincidence?

Not personalised to YOU specifically , but yes, personalised to a genre of
interests taht you may have some link to. I've had some like that too.

geoff

[Nil]

On 18 Jan 2007, Jim Gilliland > wrote in
rec.audio.pro:

> I get virus spam all the time. People are always sending me
> messages with gibberish text and unsolicited attachments. In
> general, the text is a series of generic sentences that make no
> sense whatsoever when taken as a whole. I'm sure you've all seen
> them.

In most cases, the attachements you get are probably not viruses or
malware. It's usually a GIF or JPG image that has the REAL spam in it,
the ad they want you to see. The gibberish text is an attempt to foil
spam catchers. Of course, the attachment MIGHT contain malware, but
there's no reason to even look, and the gibberish subject lines and
text are easy to spot.