From Russia with Spam

Sending out unsolicited email on a massive scale is a common practice for certain "businesses"  located in Russia or in neighbouring countries. For years this approach has been working quite well for them: using botnets to send mails in question keeps the cost for these companies very low. In our laboratory we regularly monitor mail campaigns of this type, and basically, they basically consist of sending emails containing web links where the unsuspecting visitor is likely to be offered all kinds of dubious products and services.
But this week we have seen a change of pace in this type of campaign, which have started to feature many forums specifically created in order to publish posts that continually advertise such products. It all starts with an innocent email that may contain various topic and types of content but always invites us to follow a link. Let's look at an example:

In this particular case, after clicking on the provided link, we are redirected to a post published in a forum, where a beautiful young lady presents us with photos and personal information, with the alleged intention of finding a partner. Obviously, this is an example of the so-called Russian bride scam, where some poor innocent believes he has found a (continue reading...)