The Next Inbox Clogger: MP3 Spam
Posted October 23, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
If you’re like most computer users, you’re constantly fighting the battle of the inbox. Spammers will stop at nothing to make money off you, even if you try to ignore their come-ons. So while you set up endless word filters, automatic deletions and other avoidance techniques, those who make a fortune spending money to reach you are hard at work figuring out ways to get around all of your defences.
And now they’ve come up with something new – a message disguised as an MP3 song. The unwanted visitor began showing up in inboxes worldwide last week. It appears to be a ringtone you may want to put on your phone or have on your computer and the files carry enticing names like “bartsimpson.mp3” or “justintimberlake.mp3.” But when you click on them, you hear a not-so-high quality, spooky Darth Vader-like female voice touting a stock option you’ve never heard of for a company called “Exit Only.”
“Hello, this is an investor alert!” the sometimes unintelligible voice intones, as it makes its pitch for your money. But don’t blame the company for the new trend. They claim they don’t know anything about it. “It’s very disheartening,” points out Exit Only’s David Dion. “Someone is trying to manipulate my stock for some kind of gain. What I can say is they have been very unsuccessful so far.”
Experts believe it’s part of a pump and dump scheme designed to raise the price of a stock, then sell it off for a profit before its value decreases. So far, it’s been traced back to a ‘ghost’ server in Russia, but no one’s been able to detect its true origin.
And those who watch such things warn this could be only the beginning of a new computer irritant. Because it’s not a traditional kind of email, the filters you’ve set up may not block it. It’s still up to you to choose to listen to it, of course, but spammers can track that and once the message gets through, you’re likely to receive a lot more of them, whether you want them or not. “This new form of spam shows a new level of sophistication for spammers,” agrees security expert Keith Crosley.
He’s not surprised by the latest twist, noting in an era where the iPod is king, it’s the next logical step. But in the case of Exit Only, it hasn’t exactly worked out as planned. In the two days after the message first appeared, just $2,500 worth of Exit Only stock was traded – and the price never changed.
