German spam

[scaeagles]

OK - I get spam like everyone else who uses email. But over the last week, I've been getting spam - 5 or 6 a day - in German. I don't speak German, and have no idea why I am getting German spam. Does this happen to anyone else?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Ich habe keine Idee, über was Sie sprechen.

[scaeagles]

Well, you may have no idea what I speak (thank you, free translations online), but I am wondering why this phenomena only started in the last week. I've been getting spam in English for years.

[Baileykat]

I've been getting it too! And in my inbox! I ususally don't get much spam...but it's been very frequent and it's German! Weird!

[Baileykat]

Shoot! Slow speed....double post!

[Mr. Fusion]

I'm getting it too, ugh. Filtering out email with the phrase "Lese selbst:" has helped a little though.

[CoasterMatt]

What is this spam you speak of?

[dsnylndmom]

I have been getting a TON of this over the last week also! It just bombarded me last week.

[CoasterMatt]

weird... I've never gotten spam, and I go to all sorts of weird sites.

[Kels]

It's a blasted worm article here

E-mail users perplexed by the barrage of German-language spam waiting in their inboxes Monday morning can point the finger of blame at the latest version of the Sober mass mailing worm which began rapidly spreading over the weekend.Sober.q uses both German and English-language messages to direct recipients to Web sites with right-wing German nationalistic content, according to an advisory from e-mail security company MX Logic. One of the URLs points to the Web site of the right-wing German NPD party, it says.

The security firm says that it had seen over 125,000 instances of Sober.q overnight Saturday and into Sunday, and labeled it as a high severity threat. The variant is downloaded by computers already infected by the Sober.p worm, which began circulating earlier this month, MX Logic says. The virus writers appear to have remote control over the Sober.p infected machines, giving them a network from which to launch future spam and denial of service attacks, it adds.

Spreading Propoganda

The latest Sober variant is one of a relatively new type of "propaganda spam," meant to spread political messages rather than sell a product or service, MX Logic says. Circulation of the worm coincides with ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe and examples of subject lines it sends include "Dresden 1945" and "Du wirst zum Sklaven gemacht!!!" ("You are made slaves!!!"), according to MX Logic.

"We are certainly seeing more propaganda spam," says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with Sophos. Security researchers began detecting religious spam selling a particular view of life last year, Cluley says.

Although Sophos is seeing a lot of German-language spam sent by the new Sober variant, the worm itself doesn't appear to be spreading anymore, Cluley says.

E-mail users are advised to update their spam filters to guard against the new Sober spam.