What Is Spam And How It Works

What Is Spam

Spam is most often considered to be electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited email. However, if a long-lost brother finds your email address and sends you a message, this could hardly be called spam, even though it is unsolicited. Real spam is generally email advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup.

 In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Consequently, there are many organizations, as well as individuals, who have taken it upon themselves to fight spam with a variety of techniques. But because the Internet is public, there is really little that can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, some online services have instituted policies to prevent spammers from spamming their subscribers.

Why is it Called Spam?

There is some debate about the source of the term, but the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam". Like the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. Another school of thought maintains that it comes from the computer group lab at the University of Southern California who gave it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunch meat Spam:

• Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
• No one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree.
• Sometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.

 The term spam can also be used to describe any "unwanted" email from a company or website -- typically at some point a user would have agreed to receive the email via subscription list opt-in -- a newer term called graymail is used to describe this particular type of spam.

How SPAM Attack works:

 

Attacker will send you an email with some gripping stuff (Jobs in MNC's, Prize winner, some abusive stuff etc.), where you have to click on some link or image or document file for getting full details. So as soon as you'll click on that particular thing, you'll loose your control from your machine. 

What it can do

1) It can make your system a BOT NET, by which BOT master will control your machine and will send spam mails to other users by using your email id. Generally attacker do this for some advertising stuff or for getting a data.

2) It can install remote key-logger in your machine, attacker encapsulates remote key-logger behind that image or document file by the help of stenography. So as soon as you'll click on that file that software will get uploaded on your system, which will send your passwords and every keystroke to attacker. By which you'll loose every password...even you'll loose your bank information as well if you are doing online banking.

3) Sometimes attacker also sends phishing page in SPAM mails. Phishing page is just look alike an authenticated page. So attacker can send you a phishing page of Facebook or bank website, where it will ask for your details and you'll provide those details by considering it authenticated.

4) NOW...MOST WORST SCENARIO.....

Guys believe it...it's damn worst thing can happen after that...

So when you'll click on that provided link, that link will send your IP Address to attacker by the help of XSS / CSRF attack. And as soon as attacker will get your IP Address, you will be in big trouble. Attacker will trace your system by the help of IP sniffing tools and then will get a full control of your system, by which he will be able to do everything.

[GIRLS READ IT CAREFULLY NOW] : As soon as attacker will get a control of your system, he will be able to take all the data from your system. The most worst thing can happen, he can start your webcam & headphone even when your computer is turned off by the help of small battery provided in motherboard. Means your every activity will be recorded, which can result in MMS [ Happened in Mumbai, some years back].