spamspamspamspam...pdfs..baked beans...spreadsheets and spam!

It seems that everyone is reporting on new spam techniques. But here goes anyhow:

Spammers are using pdfs and zipped up excel spreadsheets to send spam.

This is not really all that surprising because traditional spam checkers don't look inside these kind of documents or block based on whether a mail has one.

So, its back to the drawing board for spam blockers, they need to check pdfs.

The scary thing about this is that the risk for false positives is much higher with a pdf or office document (I doubt that excel will be the only spam transport chosen) because genuine business documents are usually in these formats.

If you are a broker and someone sends you an excel spreadsheet of their stock picks and you miss it because your spam checker thinks it may be "pump and dump" spam - you could end up in a lot of serious trouble.

Spam is horrible stuff but there obviously is a market for cheap Viagra with no prescription.