It sounds impossible but it isn't

Apr 16, 2007 08:14 GMT  ·  By

Gmail is the mail solution powered by Google that was released in April 2004 and is regarded as the most efficient service against spam messages. If you're asking yourself why is the title written with capital letters, let me answer. I am really outraged and this because Gmail, "the most efficient mail solution against unwanted messages" was invaded by spam emails straight in my inbox. You're probably thinking that I'm overreacting, but no, I'm really a Gmail fan and I was really disappointed when I opened the messages and saw the Viagra advert. Usually, the Gmail filters redirected all the unwanted mails in a separate folder intuitively named Spam. But now, this is different. As you can see in the picture attached to the article, the email message was actually a spam ad trying to promote multiple medications such as Viagra, Xanax or Valium.

Let's have a quick analysis over the spam message. If I click on the Spam folder, I can see 214 messages, all of them promoting medications, watches or other "special" products. ALL of them are sent by malicious email addresses and contain numerous terms filtered by the Gmail's antispam utilities. This message is quite different. First of all, it is sent from a GMAIL account and it managed to bypass the spam filters. Then, it contains only 3 words, the entire ad being based on a bad quality photo that displays the prices of the medications.

Although I really believe Gmail should improve its antispam filters, it's now obvious that Google's mail solution is not as efficient as it was presented. OK, I admit that it's able to block the majority of the spam messages but take this as an alert that Gmail is also vulnerable and your account might be attacked by unwanted emails. It seems like I wasn't the only lucky guy to receive this spam message because one of my mates also received the Viagra special offer, also in his inbox but with a different email address and another subject.

Photo Gallery (2 Images)

The spam message in the inbox
The content of the mail
Open gallery