A technical review of the CNN spam attack

This has been one of the largest spam attacks over the last few months… the spammers are using a widely distributed network of infected computers to send out millions of fake CNN News Alert Emails.

Where are they coming from?

We are blocking thousands of the CNN spam every hour. Tracing back the source of these emails shows that the CNN spam emails are being sent from a variety of countries including, but not limited to:

Japan
USA
UK
Uruguay
Senegal
France
Brazil
And many, many more…

The spammers are using a massive distributed “Bot Net” to send out this attack, using thousands of virus-infected computers around the world to send out the CNN spam emails.

It is important to note that the emails have not come from CNN.

Who are they being sent to?

The emails are being sent out to any type of email address. They are not being sent out to a list of CNN subscribers and receiving one does not mean that you have been subscribed to CNN.

Many are simply sent to random names at all major Internet Service Providers, others are sent to email addresses that are from existing spam mailing lists. Spammers often buy and sell lists of email addresses; chances are your email address will be on at least one!

Why are they being sent out?

To infect your computer with a virus…

The emails look legitimate and most of the links do link back to CNN, but the links for the stories link through to hacked websites that are being used to infect computers with Viruses.

The websites being used are also distributed around the world; some are in the Ukraine, some in the USA, some in the UK. Most major countries have websites that are being used by this attack.

The spammers are using websites that have been hacked into, where they have placed their fake CNN web pages that then installs a virus onto your computer. Never click any links on these fake CNN News Alert Emails, even if your computer has up-to-date virus scanners you may still be infected.

What can you do to protect yourself?

Today’s Internet threats move fast, faster than traditional desktop software can keep up with. ClearMyMail is an online service that protects your email account, removing all unwanted and dangerous emails before they reach your computer.

ClearMyMail was able to block all of the CNN News Alert Spam emails before any reached our customers.

Try a free 30-day trial of ClearMyMail today.

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