2. What is Spam  Any unwanted messages that are sent to many users at once.  Spam can be sent via email, text message, online chat, blogs or various other online formats.  Most Spam is created to promote questionable websites or illegal/unregulated/counterfeit products.

3. Email Spam  Also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email (UBE), when an unsolicited message is sent to numerous recipients at once. Bulk and unsolicited are the most synonymous characteristics.  Many times you may be prompted to click on a link that directs you to a phishing website or site with malware.  Sometimes malware is already included in the Email Spam via file attachments.

4. What Does Spam Look Like?  Spam can look a variety of ways, but there are some typical subject lines that are giveaways…  “Here is what you asked for…”  “Congratulations! You have been chosen for…”  “Lose weight, reduce ageing…”  Spam usually looks general and like a potential advertisement.  Often Spam will project itself as something important or familiar:  Facebooks  Office of Dr. Steven Negrete

5. Impacts of Spam  The main concern with Spam is the potential presence of malware that can seriously compromise a network.  Spam also over-work servers, limits disk space and slow bandwidth, which limits the productivity of network users.  Spam also limits the success of legitimate companies who use email for marketing. Essentially, Spam give email advertising a “bad reputation.”

6. How Do Spammers Find You?  A majority of Spammers rely on software programs called Spam Bots to scan through countless websites looking for any email address they can find.  Others simply send Spam using a combination of names and email providers. (ex. Johnsmith@gmail.com). There is very little for the Spammer to lose when resorting to this method.

7. Protecting Against Spam  Most email providers use Spam filters to reduce the amount of Spam received. In many cases, this can be enhanced by the user by adding certain senders or phrases to a Spam or Block list.  There are specific programs available to additionally combat Spam, such as SpamAssassin.  There are several watchdog organizations that are also actively working to reduce Spam by compiling databases of IP addresses or domain names that are associated with Spam.

8. How Spammers Avoid Filters  Spammers have a number of techniques that they use to get around filters. Often Spam will have paragraphs of text to make it hard for programs to identify the email as Spam.  One of the most common techniques is Image Spam. The Spammer will send text in an image format rather than text. Filters generally cannot read images, so it is easy for the email to get through the filter.