Computing Security
Why do I get so much Spam?
What is Spam?
For the purpose of this discussion we will identify spam as unsolicited email messages of a commercial nature. This definition excludes junk mail received from an acquaintance and commercial offers from a company with whom you have previously done business. For the well meaning friend, the best recourse is a reply from you indicating you would prefer they refrained from sending you Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipes and Chain Letters to help a young boy dying of cancer to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Reputable business will honor your request to be removed from their list (but be carefull using opt-out links in the messages - more on that later).
We start getting Spam when our email address "gets out in the wild". This means spammers find our email address and it gets added to lists of valid email addresses that spammers sell to each other. Spam most often advertises fraudulent or low-quality services or merchandise. You can visit the National Consumers League's Fraud Center to report suspicious emails. In some cases you could be exposing yourself to Identity Theft by responding to a Spam email.
So, how did they get my email address?
Web Pages
One of the earliest offenders were web page email address harvesters. Spammers run these programs that behave like search engines, reading every web page they can find, looking for email addresses. The addresses are saved to a list which the spammers use as recipients for their Spam emails. The lists are often sold to other spammers as well. You may not think your address is posted on any web pages but, for example, the default settings for a new Hotmail account are to list your address on the Hotmail directory and the Internet White pages. It is a good idea to de-select these options when creating a new Hotmail account.
You should be cautious of websites that ask for your email address. Never enter your email address on a web site unless you really trust them. Even well respected websites can "leak" your email address if they become victim to a virus themselves. Also never click the "opt-out" link at the bottom of an email message. In most cases these only serve to verify the spammer has reached an active email account.
Listservs and Groups
Another common way your address gets out is through listservs, or groups like Yahoo or Google. Never include your email address in a signature on a message you send to any kind of list or group. Doing so will guarantee that your address gets on a spammers list.
Viruses
Most email programs save address of people you correspond with and put them in your address book. Viruses have learned to read these address books and add the address they find to the spammer's lists. If anyone you have corresponded with gets a virus your address could be added to a list. Some viruses start Spam email right away as soon as they find these addresses.
Spyware
Spyware is rampant on the Internet. Spyware is a broad term that covers many types of malicious software. As our web browsers and other web based systems become more feature rich they also create more exploits that can be used to infect your computer. The two most common symptoms of an infected computer are unwanted popup adds and overall slow performance; however, not all spyware exhibits these symptoms.
One particular type of spyware, keystroke loggers, create huge security and identity theft risks. A keystroke logger captures everything you type, including user names, passwords, credit card information, email addresses, etc., then transmits the information back to a server. The information it collects can be sold to other spammers or worse, used to implement identity theft.
Dealing with Spam
The reality is that if you use your email account for very long you will get Spam. Your email experience will be much more enjoyable once you learn how to deal with it. Most ISPs or larger organizations that run their own email servers take steps to block spam. For example here at SOU our Spam Firewall blocks almost 90% of the incoming messages before they ever enter our system, because it knows these are spam, contain viruses or spyware or fail any number of other filters.
Most email software can help filter out the spam that does get through the Spam Firewall by placing it into a "junk mail" folder. This makes it easy for you to just delete them after you confirm no valid messages were placed there by mistake. Even without junk mail handling it really takes very little effort to just delete any spam you get once you learn to recognize it.
Ensuring you have up-to-date security updates for your operating system and programs including anti-virus and anti-spyware will minimize the risk of viruses and spyware, helping to keep your email address out of the hands of the spammers and reducing the risks of identity theft.
