New Flavour of Spam - MP3 Stock Scams

An anonymous reader writes "Spammers are back with a new trick, this time round sending messages with MP3 attachments that contain the latest pump-and-dump stock scams. One sample identified by Sophos was a heavily distorted 30-second MP3 file. A synthetic female voice was used to promote a particular stock. Says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos: 'Although the spammers seem to have a fair bit to learn about machine-generated sales patter, some companies might consider blocking all MP3s in email as a matter of course. So many music files infringe copyright, and it can be hard for a company to establish which ones are legal and which are not after they have arrived. Blocking MP3s, or at least quarantining until requested by the user, can be a good way for a company to take a proactive stance against the use of email for illegal file sharing. It also has the benefit of neutralizing this sort of spam at the same time.'"

Comments

Re:Who falls for this stuff?

[Reality Master 101]

I'm amazed that anyone would actually invest in a stock based on a spam message.

Nobody "invests" in a stock based on a spam message. People buy the stock because they hope to cash in on the stock rise from all the other people buying the stock based on the spam. If they do it early enough, they think they can catch the same wave as the originating spammer. And some probably do, which doesn't help the problem.