IP Assignment 03

Describe your experience as a victim of security problem. Explain also how you handle the problem, and classify the problem.

One experience of a security problem that I have been a victim of would be the daily spate of junk mail attacks, a problem also more commonly known as spam.The daily deluge of unsolicited commercial or offensive messages comprises one of the biggest problems facing Internet users today.

Indeed, some people have the misconception that even though spam might be considered a nuisance, it is hardly harmful. Is that true? Take for example, hordes of salespeople come to your door everyday, force their way into your house or office or anywhere you consider private, by using pseudonyms or fraudulent premises to persuade you into letting them inside, and then bombard you with sales pitches or display offensive photos to you and your family, you would definitely feel that your security had been breached.

That, is exactly what spam does to your computer.

I have received many different kinds of spam mail. Sometimes, spammers send their messages as HTML mail, or in the form of messages that include attachments. These spam mail carried embedded malicious code and some even contained viruses that could have damaged my computer if opened. Some spammers spoof the addresses of legitimate companies, banks, etc. and attempting to gather credit card and other personal information.

People tend to think of spam as just unwanted mail in email format, but it’s more than that. I have also been attacked by spammers who send unwanted messages of other types, including forum posts, instant messages, bulletin board postings, and even exploitation of services such as Windows Messenger to get their obnoxious advertisements through.

To stop spamming, I had initially tried Spamcop (www.spamcop.net), which runs a service that allows you to report spammers. SpamCop determines the origin of unwanted email and then reports it to the relevant Internet service providers. Reporting unsolicited email also helps feed spam filtering systems. Other spam control techniques I have also checked out are spam filters such as Key word filtering. The filter lets you block all messages containing particular keywords or phrases that are often seen appearing in spam (for instance, “Viagra” or “hot sexy babes”). Another filter technique would be by blocking the address. This method helps to block mail from particular IP addresses, email addresses or domains of known spammers.

However, no matter how many filters I have utilised, I have discovered that there it can be really difficult to ensure complete effectiveness against preventing spam. This is because spammers are constantly changing their addresses, updating their content and using tricks such as misspelling key words or using spaces or periods to evade the filtering systems.

A particular inconvenience with spam filtering software is the possibility of having legitimate and important messages wrongly identified as spam. Regardless of the methods used to identify spam, I think that a good anti-spam program should include a mechanism that allow users to specify mail messages from certain addresses that should be delivered to the inbox instead of the Junk mail folder.