Spam can deliver phishing links, malware, and fraudulent messages, making it a path for account theft and other cyberattacks.
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Background for this topic.
Spam is unsolicited, usually bulk messaging sent through email, text messages, social platforms, or other communication services. It may be commercial advertising, but security-relevant spam commonly includes deceptive messages designed to look like trusted communications. Automated campaigns can target large numbers of recipients at low cost, while compromised accounts and spoofed sender identities can make messages appear more credible.
Spam is a delivery channel for phishing, malware, fraudulent payment requests, and credential theft; links or attachments should therefore be treated as untrusted until verified. Defenses include reputation and content filtering, user reporting, attachment and URL analysis, and email authentication controls such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to reduce sender spoofing. Security teams should preserve relevant message headers and indicators when investigating campaigns, blocking associated infrastructure and checking whether recipients interacted with the content.
Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a novel attack chain that employs phishing emails to deliver an open-source backdoor called VShell
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new malware loader called QuirkyLoader that's being used to deliver via email spam campaigns an array of next-stage payloads ranging from information stealers to remote access trojans since November 2024