Symantec have recently reported a rise in PDF attacks sent through emails, but this time the contents of the PDF file is a Trojan rather than a Pump and Dump scam.

Our engineers did pick up on these new emails last week, but all had already been blocked by the ClearMyMail spam fitler so no customers were at risk. 

This is slightly different to the earlier outbreak of PDF spam, which were fairly short lived (Thanks in part to the fast response from ClearMyMail in blocking them).   These emails are being sent with the aim of infecting computers with a Trojan.  Once the computers have been infected they are likely to be used within a Bot-net for the purpose of sending out more spam.

It is fairly easy to protect against this attack though... Because the PDF does contain a know Trojan it is easily picked up by the ClearMyMail virus scanning engine (Part of our multi-stage email protection system) - so doesn't pose any risk to ClearMyMail customers.

What is interesting is how the spammers and virus writers are starting to use different file types to deliver their spam message or virus.  We have seen attempted spam sent through PDF files, and then it moved onto office documents (E.g. Excel files) and just last week we had MP3 spam...

MP3 spam was an interesting one.  The spammers had someone record their message as a voice MP3 file (In this case the message was for a traditional "Pump and Dump" scam).  They then added some random noise (To avoid some basic filters) and sent it out.... the main problem was that to by-pass enough spam filters they had to alter the message fairly regularly which cost them time and time is money to a spammer!