An influx of spam

[theoldwolf]

Over the last month or so, my mailbox has been flooded with spam from two predominant sources. One is the ever-present Canadian Pharmacy, which comes with a bunch of baysian-bypassing garbage, and then a distorted image prompting me to type "www.ba36.com" (or whatever this week's URL is) into my browser. I've seen this sort of garbage before, but for a long while Comcast managed to filter most of it out. I hope they get on top of this one.

The second is more puzzling. The headers will vary (the last one said "$1K Wal-Mart Gift Card"), but the message is usually blank, and consists only of an attached file with the following characteristics:

Named "hello recipient -re-cbhra".
The last letters change regularly.
Always 3K in size, although the actual length varies
Seem to contain random garbage, with the exception of the first characters, which are always (in HEX) "86 d9 a5 6e 87 72"
AVG Free never detects a virus in the attachment.

I've gotten 13 of these since the 10th of August, and it's just the geek in me that wonders what the purpose of these emails is...

As to the spammers... give me about 30 minutes with them, tied to chairs in a deserted hangar somewhere in the middle of Nevada... and a cattle prod.

Comments

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the second spammer doesn't even mean to spam and just fails at computers.

[fearciuil.livejournal.com]

As to the spammers... give me about 30 minutes with them, tied to chairs in a deserted hangar somewhere in the middle of Nevada... and a cattle prod.

Or, perhaps, a chair with no seat and a rug beater, a la Casino Royale...?

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

That would entail seeing them naked, which could be torture for yourself.

[fearciuil.livejournal.com]

...

This is true.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

NAH. Trip to the Amazon with free candiru fish

[fearciuil.livejournal.com]

Muahahahahahaha!

[sleepyjohn00.livejournal.com]

My guess is that someone is sending you a malware payload, in the hope that you will click on the attachment and open it, whereupon the machine code in the attachment will be executed so that it can contact the bot server and enslave your machine.

Malware attachments are a pretty good bet if you get spam that doesn't otherwise make sense.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

Since it's a clickable link, I suspect you're right. I just wish I could locate these drones with my ununquadium tactical cruise missile...