PNG attachments??

OK

As of late ( new ISP and email service) we have been receiving alot of spam with .png attachments....

as I understand it these are image files similare to gif, jpeg etc

They are coming as an attachment.


body of the message is

Quote:

---

Hi,
your document is here.

---

Then random text

Quote:

---

aerial under the glass. A handle stuck out one side.

---

I am getting 4 of these a day ...rightly so identified as Junk....(still tweaking the new spam filters...)

My question is...can this .PNG file be malicious??? :shock:

My symantec isnt finding anything...defs Nov 22 rev 19

Just curious...

MLF

It could be related to this one:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec.../ms05-009.mspx

It could also be they're just using another approach besides gif and jpg ;)

The short answer is no, if the PNG file is actually a PNG image. The reason they are doing this (spammers) is because many of the spam engines are wise to the same approach will common image formats such as BMP, JPG, GIF, etc. It's just another attempt at beating the logic of your filters/appliances.

--TH13

Many thanks....I think I am just seeing more spam then before til I get these new filters set.

Least its not a new exploit....all systems should be patched......:eek:

MLF

You aren't seeing more spam due to any filter action. There's a massive global increase in spam at the moment. Read:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10...et_spam_surge/

actually I was seeing more spam....because we had no filtering on our new mail server.

The filters are now at full tilt...now instead of 3 average spam per mailbox per hour...I get maybe 3 a day that get through.

And yes I was aware of the increase in the last while.

My concern is that I was seeing stuff that was usually filtered before.....and was just curious as to the nature of these types of attachments....encase on of our users clicked on it.....

Our SPAM filter is working just fine now.....not much squeaking through at all.

Thanks for the info

MLF

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by morganlefay

actually I was seeing more spam....because we had no filtering on our new mail server.

---

That might cause an increase in spam, yes :)

It's a real pain - there must be genuine messages I'm missing because the choice is either aggressive filtering or your inbox filled up with rubbish at a rate of knots.

Quote:

---

It's a real pain - there must be genuine messages I'm missing because the choice is either aggressive filtering or your inbox filled up with rubbish at a rate of knots.

---

This is where spam appliances come in. They have a wealth of tuning options.

Post Thanksgiving you will *always* see huge increases in spam/phishing. The criminals are out Christmas shopping too. ;)

Even so .... everyone I know has commented on the massive increase in spam lately. I don't remember such an increase this time last year, but yes, it is thought to be seasonally related.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Moira

Even so .... everyone I know has commented on the massive increase in spam lately. I don't remember such an increase this time last year, but yes, it is thought to be seasonally related.

---

Interesting. I have seen spam spikes each year post Thanksgiving. Nothing new from my vantage point. The creativity and quality of some of the junk is certainly getting better. Amazing how nice of a job one can do when the motivation is to steal. lol.

Volume is up exponentially simply because more and more people are coming online. I forget the statistic for growth ATM but the real problem is that many of them are criminals in third world countries looking to cash in on the biggest crime bonanza in the history of man kind.


--Th13

I suppose that has to account for a lot of it - but the popularity of botnets is also a cause (so I'm led to believe).

Botnets are nothing new. I've been squashing them for years. They became popular and well known when the focus shifted to a crime model. I'm a member of a vetted mailing list where the focus is taking down botnets. We have key players that sit in all the right places to rip down these damn things. Our stats show that botnets will not see significant growth in their current IRC based C&C model, rather, a shift to a distributed model such as P2P. When that happens, look out.

Botnets are the vehicle for spam traffic, no doubt. But there are many other contributing factors as well.

--TH13