IT managers are warned to be on the lookout to protect their company’s reputation, as well
as their users, from a new wave of spam aimed at stealing personal and financial
information.
The latest trend in spam and identity theft is called brand spoofing. The spam has no
traceable return address and appears to be sent from a large company seeking information
from its customers. Pretending to be a large business, say Sony, BestBuy or eBay, which has
a relationship with the user, the spammers ask for critical password, user names and credit
card information.
It’s both spam and identity theft. But now there’s a heightened level of sophistication to
the trickery being used to fool people into giving up critical personal information. And it
has the potential to not only empty people’s bank accounts but to sully a company’s
reputation.
”This is extremely dangerous,” says Susan Larson, vice president of global product content
at SurfControl Plc, a London-based Web and email filtering company. ”It’s like organized
crime on the Internet… They use the name of a large company and the idea is that with a
large spam attack, at least some of the people receiving the spam will have done business
with that bank or retailer or company. It gives it an air of legitimacy that is fooling
people.”
Larson says brand spoofing spam is generally looking for account information, passwords,
user names and credit card information. The spam recipient is usually asked to click on a
link to a page that has been doctored up to look like an official company page, or they’re
asked to send a reply email with the requested information.
”The idea of being able to completely mask who you are, being able to blast emails to large
numbers of people who might have a connection with these companies is all fairly devious,”
says Larson, adding that they first saw signs of brand spoofing in late February or March
but it’s since been picking up speed. ”They only have to get a very small hit to do some
damage and make some profit on this one.”
But the damage isn’t being limited to a consumer’s checkbook. Ray Everett-Church, chief
privacy officer for Philadelphia-based ePrivacy Group, Inc., says these new attacks are
quick to damage a company’s sacred name.
”Any time you have spam masquerading itself as coming from a legitimate source, it can
severely damage the brand name being spoofed,” says Everett-Church. ”This is a company’s
brand. This is their business… Anytime somebody is using your brand in a way they’re not
authorized to, it’s a problem.”
Everett-Church says IT managers need to be aware of the earliest warnings signs that
something is amiss.
”You have to be extremely vigilant in all of your customer-facing activities,” he notes.
”Be on the lookout for reports of strange emails — anything that might suggest your brand
is being spoofed. If you receive strange bounced emails, a lot of attempts to visit a Web
page on your site that doesn’t exist, or if people go first to a page deep in your Web site
without going to the homepage and navigating through, these are all telltale signs.”
Everett-Church recommends that IT managers sit down with business executives and compose an
email to customers. They should warn customers of the brand spoofing problem and make them
aware that they will never ask for people’s private information or passwords via email. Warn
them not to go to a Web site if they’re not entirely sure it belongs to the legitimate
organization. Educate customers about the company’s normal practices, and give them
easy-to-use feedback channels to report suspicious emails.
SurfControl’s Larson also recommends that IT managers make sure employees are educated about
spam and fraudulent emails.
”IT managers need to make employees cyber security aware and spam savvy,” says Larson, who
adds that a recent SurfControl survey showed that 90 percent of IT managers do not do any employee
education. ”Make them aware of the latest spam trends and make them aware of what
information they should never pass on.”
Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Driving Greater Equality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
December 16, 2020
AI vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
December 11, 2020
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2021
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.
Advertise with Us
Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this
site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives
compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products
appear on this site including, for example, the order in which
they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies
or all types of products available in the marketplace.