Sophos has warned of the use of cartoons in a stock pump-and-dump campaign. The spammers target the shares in the company Digital Learning Management.


Sophos has warned of the use of cartoons in a stock pump-and-dump campaign. The spammers target the shares in the company Digital Learning Management.

According to Sophos, the spam emails show a cartoon of a man pushing a wheelbarrow filled with money. Below the picture are the words “You can’t handle the loot!”.

The spammers in the email attempt to manipulate stock prices so that they can make a profit out of it.

The email contains random gray writing on a white background. This writing is difficult for the human eye to notice. The writing attempts to prevent anti-spam filters from blocking the email.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: “The spammers are only interested in getting as many people as possible to purchase shares, pumping up the price so that they can then sell theirs at a substantial profit. People should think twice about why someone they’ve never heard from before might be telling them which shares to buy.” [Source]

According to Sophos, such pump-and-dump stock campaigns account for 15% of all spam. This is an increase from January 2006, when it accounted for 1 in 100 of all spam emails.

LINKS:

For more information on the spam campaign and for a screenshot of the email, click here.

For more information on the company, visit Sophos.