Researchers warn that many spam runs are highly versatile

Sep 14, 2012 10:58 GMT  ·  By

Experts are highlighting the fact that the classic spam campaigns have become trickier in the past period not only because they rely on social engineering, but also because cybercriminals design them to be versatile.

Trend Micro experts have come across such a spam operation in which a replica of a Facebook account confirmation email is used. The classic confirmation link in the well-designed notification doesn’t lead to Facebook (although it appears to be), but instead it points to a rogue pharmacy website.

Researchers note that these schemes have the potential of recording a high success rate and because they’re versatile, the illegal pharmacy website could be replaced at any time with a survey scam and even a more dangerous BlackHole exploit kit.

Today, the confirmation link may point to a relatively harmless pharmacy site, but tomorrow it could point to phishing webpages, malware and other types of attacks.