I have noticed a great increase of bounced messages with spam attached... how sneaky are these guys getting. Sad that many are having to turn off bouncing to combat spam.

I have notice a great increase of bounced messages with spam attached... how sneaky are these guys getting. Sad that many are having to turn off bouncing to combat spam.

http://www.net4now.com/isp_news/news_article.asp?News_ID=3509


SoftScan announced today that in a bid to beat detection and increase the likelihood of their messages being read, spammers are increasingly using a new twist on joe-jobbing (forging the sender’s email address) that may lead to organisations abolishing the bounce back message.

“The change in tactic demonstrates that spammers are having an increasingly hard time getting through anti-spam technologies and persuading users to open up their emails and at least read them,” comments Bo Engelbrechtsen, corporate communications manger of SoftScan.

Instead of forging the sender’s email address, which is easily detected by anti-spam technologies, and sending it directly to the target company; spammers are deliberately sending their messages to an email address they know does not exist at high profile company with the “from” email address of the target company.

The email is then bounced as an unrecognised email address and sent back to the “sender”. Since the IP address and the email domain address now match, the email isn’t picked up by anti-spam technology and the email, complete with the spammer’s original and intended message is passed to the end user.
Spammers are now relying on the fact that users are more likely to open and the read the bounce back because it has come from a legitimate source.

Bo Engelbrechtsen continues, “No respectable company wants to see its domain name linked to spam. Although bounce back messages are helpful in letting senders know whether or not their message reached the recipient, in order to stop the abuse of their domain name many companies are already starting to turn off their bounce back messages.”