Spam is the sending of advertising letters of a political or commercial nature to people who have not subscribed to it. Spam refers to emails, received by user's email, phone, social applications like whats app, skype and many others. Main topics letters can be different: from a visit to a resort to an offer to earn big money or receive a prize for some action that the user has never done.

The first episode of spamming took place in the nineteenth century. In 1864, politicians in Britain received telegrams advertising dental services by telegraph. In the twentieth century, a similar term was used to designate the trademark of Hormel Foods Corporation. This there was an abbreviation SPAM stood for SPiced hAM, which translated meant “spicy ham.” After the war, advertisements about unconsumed canned food were broadcast at every turn - from the radio, newsstands, on trams and buses. There was a sketch on a television show in Britain called "SPAM". This is where the modern name comes from.

Sometimes spam turns from harmless letters into real black PR. For example, with its help, one company can denigrate another by sending Internet and telephone users some kind of message discrediting the latter’s reputation. With the help of such mailings, pornography, drugs and much more are advertised, which is prohibited by law.

Masked as spam money swindling. For example, a woman receives a message in the mail that her son was in an accident and asks to send money for a complex operation and a number where to send savings. Those women who have never encountered such actions believe and send money. And then it turns out that the son is healthy and nothing happened to him. The types will be discussed in more detail below.

Types of spam

The most common type is advertising. With the help of advertising, companies sell services and offer goods. Such advertising is permitted at the legislative level. But many recipients are still wary.

Another type is " Nigerian letters" The name was formed due to the fact that large number Similar reports have been received in Nigeria. The recipient of such a letter is promised a large sum money, but you need to open an account, postage costs, which the scammer will supposedly pay only when the recipient sends the money to him.

Almost the same in appearance is " phishing" Allegedly, the bank administration will block the recipient's account if he does not send his details and does not confirm the data on the site under which the link to the spammers' site is hidden. This way, fraudsters will receive all the necessary data in order to transfer the money in the recipient’s account to themselves.

Letters of happiness, common among schoolchildren and adults, are also one of the varieties in our country. They are based on the requirement to forward the message to as many friends as possible. And in return, a miracle will happen in the life of the recipient in a few days. Sometimes such messages may contain negative content. For example, threaten heavenly punishment if a person does not forward a certain number of letters to friends.

All these legal and illegal actions are carried out by people who are called spammers. They could be mailing services, database collectors, software manufacturers, or even the average user. If a person wants to communicate something to many people without their request or consent, he automatically becomes a spammer.

This type of mailing brings benefits to the customers of letters. It is difficult to fight this species, but it is possible.

How to fight spam

You can deal with mailings yourself. If you often receive messages from a particular group or user, you can always add the person to blacklist and make sure that messages fall into a specially designated block. On the website mail.ru, or Yandex.Mail, it is called “Spam”.

For the user who wants to protect himself from spammers, not recommended publish your mailing address on publicly accessible websites. Or create a special box if you have to register in unreliable groups and communities. Not recommended respond to similar messages or follow the links in them. Perhaps the link already contains a script that will block your computer or phone at best. At worst, he will gain access to your cards and bank accounts.

There is special software that protects against annoying mailings. Typically, such antispam modules are built into the antivirus or installed separately. Kaspersky Lab, Antispam, Counterspam are the best of these programs.

It is recommended to blacklist such senders on phones. Letters will arrive in separate block called "Antispam" on the phone. And if the recipient wants, he can look, if not, he can put it on automatic removal after a certain number of days.

You can find examples in the pictures below. These are like this harmless mailings also called spam on the Internet.

These are examples of mailings from ordinary users. There are entire companies, for example, computer repair, window installation, that engage in similar mailings, inserting links to their pages in user names or words. Below is an example:

What to do with spam emails

How dangerous is spam?

First of all, it is dangerous because in a pile of various mailings you will have to search for a long time for a truly useful letter from a friend or from work. By opening a spam email and clicking on the link, you expose yourself and your corporate network to infection with various viruses. Thirdly, additional load on the network.

If you still don’t know the answer to the question “What is spam on the Internet?”, then you run a big risk of getting a virus on your computer, losing confidential data (logins, passwords, payment details, etc.), and simply wasting your personal time wasted. Spam messages are the number one nuisance on the Internet. This article will bring you up to date: it will tell you what this attack is, how it manifests itself, and how protection against spammers is organized.

Definition

Story

The term "SPAM" owes its name to the story of the canned meat company Hormel Foods Corporation. In the abbreviated version, they were called exactly that - the trademark SPAM, which meant SPiced hAM (sharp witch). The first samples of these products appeared in 1936. And during World War II, Hornel Foods Corporation supplied these canned foods to the American army and its allies.

After the victory over Nazi Germany, a huge supply of canned SPAM minced meat remained in the company’s food warehouses. In order to quickly sell the “stale” products, the manufacturer, without hesitation, decided to launch a grandiose advertising campaign. Bright signs and advertisements inviting the purchase of SPAM canned food could be found everywhere: on buses and trams, at intersections and street facades, in grocery store windows, in newspapers. In addition, the radio broadcast about the delicacy “SPAM”: the announcers constantly spoke from loudspeakers about the unique opportunity to purchase delicious canned food.

In 1969, the TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus aired a sketch about the "legendary" canned goods. The heroes of the scene, husband and wife, having placed an order in a cafe, discovered “SPAM” in every dish. They suspected something was wrong and asked the waiter to bring something edible, but without Spam. He responded to the customers’ request with a new proposal: “I can offer you dishes with a little spam.” At the end of the sketch, visitors are outraged by such “intrusive” service and argue with the cafe staff. And amid their grumbling, the Viking choir at the neighboring tables solemnly praises the canned food: “Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam! (Favorite... Wonderful spam). Having gained due popularity among viewers, the sketch became a reason to label annoying advertising with the word “Spam.” Of course! After all, the name of the product was mentioned 108 times.

The next step in strengthening the terminology took place in 1986, when Dave Rhodes began sending out letters en masse inviting people to join his financial pyramid. This offer became so boring to subscribers that they involuntarily began to associate it with the “legendary” canned food from the popular sketch.

The “new meaning” gradually took root in everyday life and unbridled information flow. And soon it successfully “migrated” to the computer industry. Now among ordinary people, the concept of SPAM is more associated with PCs and web technologies than with canned food and TV.

Varieties

All spam is divided into two large categories:

Harmless

2. Illegal, illegal advertising. Spammers send e-mail advertisements, the placement of which is officially prohibited by the letter of the law on the Internet: information about web resources containing adult content, intimate services, hacked software, propaganda of terrorist groups, etc. The spam distribution service also falls into this category (that is individual or a group of people, for a certain fee, organizes mass distribution of the client’s advertisement).

3. Anti-advertising. Manufacturers disparage the products and services of their competitors to potential buyers. These advertisements are full of slogans: “Don’t take it!”, “Don’t buy!”, “No quality here!”, “No guarantee!” etc.

4. "Letters of happiness." Messages asking the reader to reproduce and distribute them further (send to other users). If this condition is met, they predict soon improved financial well-being, increased attention from the opposite sex, arrangement of personal life, omnipresent luck and other benefits that almost every person dreams of and strives for.

5. Propaganda. “Dispatches” trying to change political views, convince of something, instill fear, confusion in the mind through both true and false statements and data. They can tell about a specific person, party, group, law or event.

6. Politics. Election campaigning, invitations to join a political party, etc.

Dangerous

1. "Nigerian Letters"- a special type of spam stream, a fraudulent scheme aimed at extracting money. It received this name due to the fact that the first letters of similar content were sent mainly from Nigeria.

The sender of the “Nigerian” message, who is also an attacker, asks the reader of the letter to help him get a large sum of money. But he, in turn, must send him some money, which is supposedly necessary to open a bank account and prepare documents.

If the user responds to the request after reading the fake letter, he sends cash to the specified address - naturally, he does not receive a response, and the evil spammers rub their hands contentedly when they see the account being replenished. And if suddenly the victim decides to complain to whomever he should about what happened, the authors of this “cunning message”, in turn, will promptly hide or delete their address and payment details.

However, this is just one of many scenarios for defrauding money. The most common options are:

• There is a profitable vacancy to work abroad, but you need to pay for permission and registration.
• Congratulations, you inherited an inheritance from your uncle overseas, but... it is necessary to transfer money for... .
• You have won the lottery, all that remains is to pay for the procedure for receiving your winnings.
• Donate funds...

2. Phishing - fake mailing to steal confidential user data. In letters of this kind, scammers disguise themselves as the administration of social networks, online stores, electronic payment systems They ask you to provide your login details (login, password), payment details, passport details as if to confirm information, technical work, paperwork, etc. But the data is entered on a fake website (disguised as a trusted service), a link to it is provided in a hidden form in the letter.

3. Viruses - letters with infected files and hacker scripts. They motivate the user in every possible way to download the proposed files to their computer, open a picture, video, etc. If the user responds appropriately, the malware embedded in the email will attack the PC system. The consequences of their activities can be very dire: arbitrary deletion of programs and content from the hard drive, disruption of the system, theft of confidential data, remote exploitation of computer resources, distribution of an infected letter through a hacked user’s e-mail, etc.

Anti-spam methods

Lock

Block addresses from which spam comes from in your mailbox: add them to the blacklist.

Adding an email to a spam filter on popular services looks like this:

1. Mark the email in your inbox. If it is already open, immediately proceed to the second step.
2. In the horizontal menu, click the “This is spam!” button.
3. The potentially dangerous message will automatically be moved to the Spam folder, and subsequent messages from the blocked address will be placed in the same directory.

Gmail

Click in top panel Exclamation mark icon to add to the list of spam addresses. You can also delete the advertising message by clicking the “trash can” button.

To view and clear the filter directory:

1.Click on vertical menu On the left is the “More” item.

(Internet Protection → Mail Protection → Scan/General)

Use temporary boxes for registration on dubious services and for forwarding messages and mailings to real e-mails. This way you will reduce the risk of your address getting into the spam database.

Mail clients

When choosing an email client to work with a large number of email profiles, first of all find out whether it has a protection module against viruses and spam. This is a priority requirement software this category.

Among our trusted clients:

• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Zimbra et al.

Spam prevention

1. Do not post your email on open access(in signatures to letters, social networks, chats, forums), do not indicate it in registration forms and in subscriptions to dubious services.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, open spam messages or click on links or interactive elements contained in them.
3. Use white and black lists to receive emails only from specified addresses and block spam emails.
4. Regularly update your antivirus software signature databases.

Good luck in your fight against spam in your mailboxes!

Everyone who has email has experienced spam. Spam is a mass anonymous mailing of advertising that does not have the consent of the recipient.

Typically these advertisements are sent from different computers through a spam network. At the same time, owners do not always know that spam is being sent from their PC, and recipients, in turn, usually ignore incoming advertising and simply delete it.

What is spam on the Internet

Spam is found everywhere on the World Wide Web:

• when searching for the necessary information;
• communicating on social networks;
• when downloading an interesting movie, etc.

Why is spam dangerous? The answer will be: because he is the culprit of numerous troubles. Firstly, it may cause a virus infection. Secondly, spam emails create enormous traffic, thereby overloading the network resource: Internet starts to slow down, and users have to overpay for traffic.

In addition, spam interferes with the viewing of material of interest; it is used to distribute fraudulent letters, which come in two types:

• Nigerian- a request for help, usually financial, for an operation, etc. The name comes from the wide distribution of such letters in the African state of the same name.
• Phishing(from English - fishing) - pursue the goal of luring out information about bank accounts, credit cards etc. Moreover, the design of these letters may exactly repeat the style of your bank, and the name may differ by one or two letters. You should be very vigilant when receiving correspondence of this nature.

Main varieties

1. Pop-up spam ads on some sites. This brings income to the author of the resource.
2. Spam mailing is the repeated sending of messages by email (the most important source of the problem described). Often the reader subscribes to the newsletter to receive information that interests him. If you encounter spammers, advertisements will arrive daily and will be off-topic.
3. Guest books on some sites also become clogged spam ads. They can also be found in comments to content on blogs or forums. These are comments of a general nature (for example, this is a useful article) containing a link to another resource.
4. Spam is also present on message boards, forums and chat rooms.
5. Invisible text. To increase website traffic, sometimes cunning webmasters try to fool search engines. To do this, they fill their project with popular words with a font color that matches the background of the resource. This way the user won't see it. Because of this, when you enter a query into the search bar, you can often find completely incomprehensible pages in the results.
6. Spam on social networks is spread through personal messages. Often, attackers steal an account and send a newsletter from it to the friends of the person from whom they stole it.
7. Mobile fraud in SMS messages. Mobile operators They even created a blacklist of such SMS.

How to fight spam

To get rid of email spam, you need unsubscribe from mailing list. Usually this function is provided at the end of the letter, but not always. If this feature is missing, you will need to mark annoying messages as spam yourself. To do this, check the box next to unwanted emails and click on the “This is spam” menu.

Anything selected is automatically moved to the Spam folder. This folder can be emptied manually; if this is not done, after 30 days the messages are deleted automatically. The mail server, in turn, remembers the dishonest sender. Now almost all major email services (Yandex.Mail, Gmail, etc.) have these antispam filters.

If possible, remove (manually or using plugins) your comments on suspicious sites.

Avoid dubious resources with a lot of pop-ups. These steps will help prevent your computer from becoming infected with a virus.

Never respond to such correspondence, do not click on the links contained in it, and do not give permission to download a picture, since your address is immediately marked as active in the spam network. If this is not done, unexpected advertising will only increase in the future.

Important point! The problem may become uncontrollable after the user's email address gets into the spam database. To prevent this, you should adhere to the following rules:

• Create two addresses: public - for publicly available sources(chat rooms, forums), private - for personal correspondence.
• The email password and address should be heavy and long.
• To register in online stores and other resources, use your public address.
• Use modern antispam filters (on your computer or with the help of your provider).
• Modern antivirus programs are also equipped with anti-spam protection.

Bottom line

The topic of spam is very relevant. Mass mailing can bring a lot of trouble for the average Internet user and the simple owner of a web resource. By following a few simple rules, you can prevent your mailbox from getting clogged.

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Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Surely you have already encountered spam, even if you didn’t know exactly what this outrage is called. And for this it is not even necessary. Spam pours in with enviable regularity into regular mailbox- these are the same countless advertising booklets that are handed to you in the hope that you will order or buy something.

So, spam is that is precisely the annoying one, creeping in from all sides advertising(but not only advertising - there are worse things). You didn’t order it, you don’t need it, but he rushes and rushes from every corner. The information you need can easily get lost in this heap and you have to spend a lot of time sifting through it.

In our computer age, the main source of spam. And besides advertising spam mailings can also be dangerous both for your wallet (phishing, social engineering, scams) and for your computer (viruses, worms, Trojans).

What does the word Spam mean, what does it look like and how can you fight it, you will learn by looking at this short article. I hope it will be interesting (well, certainly useful - I promise you that).

Spam - what is it?

What does the word SPAM mean?

Self word Spam comes from the name of canned meat, which was vigorously advertised after the end of the Second World War (obviously, it was necessary to urgently sell out the soldiers' meat rations).

The advertising was so aggressive, comprehensive and ubiquitous that this word (and the associated “sediment”) was remembered, but only because of the intrusive advertising that appeared along with it in conferences (then still on the Fidonet, if anyone remembers).

The word stuck, especially since intrusive advertising did not become less, but rather the opposite. When email gained popularity, unauthorized mass advertising and malicious mailings became commonplace. Such mailings were profitable for spammers, because without any special costs necessary information brought to large number people.

But It's not limited to email. They spam in private messages on social networks, on forums, in instant messengers, on message boards, in comments to blogs, open for editing and adding text by anyone. They will also spam your phone, for example by calling you advertising or sending advertising SMS messages.

Where can you find him on the Internet?

1. E-mail- it's just a Klondike for spammers. With the help of mass mailings you can sell anything, you can deceive and rob, you can infect computers and send worms. Databases for mass mailings are collected independently (with the help of programs), or purchased from those who do this professionally.
2. Forums, comments blogs, wiki sites and message boards - here, essentially, everyone is allowed to leave messages and spammers find it difficult to resist spamming. This is not always advertising - often this is how webmasters try to get free link to your website so that it stands higher in search results Yandex or Google for various requests. This brings them traffic and money.
3. Social media and dating sites - spam is very common among incoming personal messages. It is also available in the comments to messages.
4. Messengers (like ) are also susceptible to this scourge.
5. SMS-messages from people unknown to you of an advertising nature. Probably everyone is familiar with it.
6. Search spam- a rather specific thing, but familiar to everyone. Have you ever had a situation where you enter a query into Yandex (Google), and the responses are entirely sites with some kind of bullshit that have nothing to do with the matter. These are so-called doorways (sites with automatically generated useless texts). They spam search engine results, but they make money from visitors visiting them (in different ways).

Those. all letters in your mailbox (or forum messages, blog comments, personal messages) of an advertising or other nature from a sender unknown to you - this is spam. True, the newsletters you have subscribed to can also be intrusive, but you can still unsubscribe from them (refuse to receive them further).

Spam itself is annoying and annoying, because it litters where it appears. Most often, this is your inbox, and it can be quite difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff when there are too many unwanted messages. But spam can also pose a real danger to both you and your computer. Let's figure this out.

Understanding the types of spam (harmless and dangerous)

From now on I will mainly talk about spam messages arriving by email, because it is this channel that is considered especially susceptible to this phenomenon. Everything else is not as neglected and is not so actively used by spammers, and this does not apply to all network users. But the problem of protecting them from unwanted messages is acute.

Types of harmless spam

1. Advertising of legal goods and services- in this case, the business owner simply chose spam mailings as one of the channels for attracting clients and customers, because it is not expensive, fast and brings results. Naturally, he doesn’t think much about the moral (or rather immoral) side of this matter.
2. Prohibited advertising— there are goods and services that are prohibited by law from advertising, and for them spam mailings can be the main channel for attracting customers. By the way, spammers also advertise their services through mass mailings, since this activity is prohibited by law. This also includes advertising that discredits competitors, since this is also prohibited by law (praise yourself, but don’t scold others).
3. Impact on public opinion- very often spam becomes a good choice for those who are trying to manipulate public opinion in the desired direction. It could be politics, but it could also be. Letters in general can be sent supposedly from some person in order to compromise him, change his opinion about him, or use his authority for profit. But this does not pose a danger to you personally.
4. Letters that ask to be forwarded to others- these can be varieties of so-called “letters of happiness” (send it to 10 friends and you will be happy), or asking to send information to friends for some other reason. Often such letters are used by spammers to collect or replenish an existing email database for subsequent mass mailings.

High-risk spam - what it can be

While regular (harmless) spam may only have a slight impact on your peace of mind and mental health, the examples below can be quite dangerous for your wallet or computer. And this is no joke.

I myself (the one who teaches and trains everyone) a couple of years ago “bought” a similar type of letter (phishing) and parted with several thousand rubles (read “”). I just got busy and did everything “automatically” just to get behind, well, when I realized it, it was too late.

1. - Very effective method deceiving not only gullible people, but also simply busy or inattentive people (there is a hook for everyone). They send you a letter supposedly from your bank or service electronic money or from somewhere else. In this letter, you will definitely be taken aback by something (unsettled) and asked to log in to the site to solve the problem. You log in, but the site will be fake (although it looks exactly like the real one) and the data you provided will be immediately used to steal all your money.
2. Nigerian letters- you learn that you can get a large amount of money (various pretexts - from an unexpected inheritance to helping a prince in exile). You don’t believe it for a long time, but they convince you. When you believe it, you will be asked to transfer some money for “related expenses.” You translate and no one will bother you anymore.
3. Viruses, worms, Trojans— the letter may contain an attached file with malware(or a link leading to a site with a virus). She can immediately cause problems with the operation of the computer, or she will sit quietly in a corner and carefully write down all the passwords, logins and other useful household things you enter. Worms, among other things, can also send themselves to your friends using the email addresses found in your contacts (as they will call you later...).

Spam protection

Where do spammers get databases with email addresses?

1. Spammers (those who send mass mailings) collect email addresses from all available sources. These could be forums guest books, chats, social networks and other sites where postal addresses may be publicly available.
2. Hackers manage to get to some databases of addresses stored on websites.
3. Emails are collected in most cases programmatic method(with the help of search bots - harvesters) and this does not require much effort (only time, and not very much). Moreover, similar spam email databases You don’t have to collect them, but buy them from those who specialize in this matter ().
4. Billions are registered worldwide postal addresses, and therefore you can simply try to generate Emails using special programs using appropriate dictionaries. With a high degree of probability, many of them will actually exist. Read below about how spammers check the reality of addresses.
5. There are special worms (viruses) that can send themselves to a database of addresses found on the victim’s computer. The database collected in this way will already be cleared of non-working mailboxes.

How do spammers clean databases of inactive email addresses?

Those who collect a database of addresses essentially don’t care who owns this or that address - they send letters to everyone, because there will still be someone who will respond to them (as they say - they hit the squares).

But still, in order to optimize costs and increase the return on mailings, it is beneficial for them to clear the databases of non-existent addresses. How do they do it? Let's see.

1. The simplest thing is to place a picture in the letter (maybe not even visible - one pixel in size), which will be loaded from the site owned by the spammer when the user opens the letter. If the picture is loaded, it means the letter was opened and the email is valid.
2. Many email clients (programs for working with email) automatically send a message that the letter has been read, which again plays into the hands of spammers.
3. The letter may contain a link urging you to go somewhere, promising mountains of gold. We've moved on - consider that your Email will now be marked as valid. The most unpleasant thing is that such a link can be disguised as an unsubscribe button, which will actually lead to the opposite effect.

How to reduce the likelihood of your email getting into the spam database?

In general, as soon as your mailbox is “verified,” spammers won’t just leave you. It is important to understand that no one is immune from spam. But it is possible significantly reduce the likelihood of getting into such a spam database if you take the following precautions:

1. You can, of course, not publish your Email anywhere at all and not tell it to anyone. But in most cases this is difficult to do, so I advise except the main drawer have one or two minor ones that you will use to register on forums, etc. Often they can also come in handy, which can be obtained without registration at all.
2. Do not click on links in spam emails (even if there is an “Unsubscribe” button - this is a trap) and, if possible, disable automatic download images in the email client program you are using. There is a chance that your Email will be counted as inactive and mass mailings will not arrive to it in the hundreds per day.
3. If you have not yet registered a mailbox or are planning to create a new one (for example, because the old one is completely clogged with spam), then do not proceed from the convenience and ease of remembering it, but on the contrary, make it longer and more complex. To your friends, you will still send it to electronic form, but spammer search programs are unlikely to guess it.

What to do if spam no longer lets you breathe?

These were all preventive measures to combat spam (or rather, reduce its quantity). But there is a possibility effective fight even already completely neglected situation. In this case, it becomes extremely important.

The fact is that in such large services as or, there are powerful antispam filters.

They place all suspicious emails in separate folder“Spam”, thereby freeing the “Inbox” folder from garbage. Yes, there is no perfect spam cutter, and whenever possible, before cleaning, it would be better to view the contents of the “Spam” folder diagonally to see if it contains legitimate correspondence. But it’s still much easier than digging through all this garbage all the time.

If you have a mailbox on another service, where the spam cutting is poor (for example, as in), then you shouldn’t despair. Get yourself an Email on Gmail or Yandex, and then set up mail forwarding to it from your old mailbox. Moreover, these settings can be made as in the old mailbox (i.e. set up forwarding - shown in the screenshot):

Also, in the new mailbox, you can configure the collection of mail from your existing Emails (the screenshot shows the settings for collecting mail in Gmail):

The same can be said about programs mail clients . Most of them also have a built-in spam cutter.

But in this case we should not forget that the mail service will have its own spam folder. this can be corrected in the settings of the service or client program).

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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Spam is something every network user is familiar with.

In its most common sense, spam is mass mailing advertising letters to users who did not give their consent.

Now spam has many more meanings and variations: SMS spam, email spam social networks and so on. But let's start with the origin of the word itself.

Term

The word “spam” itself, or rather the English version “spam”, has a rather funny origin. SPAM was originally a trademark of an American company; Under this brand, canned meat began to be produced in 1936, of which so much was produced during the Second World War that an urgent advertising campaign had to be carried out - it was necessary to sell them before the expiration date. These canned foods were advertised everywhere, and were also advertised on the radio.

This situation was played out in one of the episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and its current meaning word SPAM acquired in 1986, when many identical messages appeared in advertisements for a financial pyramid.

Currently, the amount of spam varies from year to year. For example, in 2017, the share of spam in total email traffic was slightly more than half, 56.63%; Moreover, the largest amount of spam (more than 13%) came from the United States.

Types of spam

1. Bulk mailing- the most famous type of spam. Spammers buy databases of email addresses and then send emails with commercial offers (which most often contain viruses, phishing, and so on).
2. Messages on social networks and instant messengers. Previously, these were the same advertising messages as in letters, but now a scheme is becoming popular when a user’s account is hacked, and then messages are sent on his behalf asking him to transfer a certain amount of money.
3. Spam on forums. Spammers are also active on forums: they leave messages in discussions and send private messages to users. Sometimes this is used to build up the link mass of a site.
4. Spam in comments on the site. The type of spam that website owners hate the most. The goal of spammers is still the same - either to advertise their goods or services, or to increase subject citation index(tIC).
5. Spam in catalogs and message boards. Directories are used to promote websites (although less so now), and message boards are used for fraudulent advertisements.
6. Spam via SMS. Just like when sending emails, spammers buy user databases mobile operators and send spam messages of an advertising or fraudulent nature.

Safe and dangerous spam

Spam messages can be divided into two large groups - safe and dangerous. The first ones are unpleasant, but they only threaten you with a spoiled mood and a waste of time, but the second ones can harm your computer and finances.

Safe spam

1. Advertising of legal goods or services. These are ordinary letters of an advertising nature, with the difference that users did not give their permission to receive them.
2. Advertising of goods or services prohibited by law. If the law prohibits advertising a product or service, then spammers begin to actively use mailings; they have nothing to lose.
3. Compromising letters. May be related to politics; are sent with the aim of discrediting competitors, and can also be sent supposedly on behalf of competitors in order to change opinions about them for the worse.
4. "Letters of happiness." Messages (including in instant messengers) with a request to forward a text to other users so that something good happens or something bad doesn’t happen. Sometimes such letters are used by spammers to collect a database of addresses for subsequent mailings.

Dangerous spam

In general, spam is far from a harmless thing, so any messages that look like spam should be treated very carefully.

How to deal with email spam

In order to reduce the amount of spam in your mail as much as possible, you need to start by understandinghow users get on mailing lists.

1. Inattention when registering on the site. Often, in the registration form there is already a checkbox indicating consent to receive advertising materials. However, in this case it is not difficult to refuse spam: at the end of each letter there should be an “Unsubscribe” link.
2. Hacking. Fraudsters hack websites and user emails and gain access to databases (contacts).
3. Sale. Address databases, unfortunately, are sometimes sold by website employees themselves.
4. Phishing. The user enters his data on fake sites.

What to do?

The main advice that has repeatedly shown its effectiveness:

register at least two email addresses. One for personal and work contacts, and the second for registration on commercial sites, sites with dubious content, and so on.

The next tip is to choose a reliable email service (for example, Gmail ). In such email services, spam filtering works well, so most of the fraudulent emails will go straight to the Spam folder.

If some letter nevertheless “breaks through” into the main letter folder, be sure to mark it as spam - all further letters from this user will end up there.

You can also use filters and create rules to get rid of spam (for example, in Yandex mail).

Conclusion

Spam is a serious problem - mainly due to the dangerous links and files that can be found inside the email, spam is a serious problem, especially for unsophisticated users. Therefore, even if you are sure that you will never fall for scammers, be sure to tell your family and friends about the dangers.