Daily Spam re Norton/Mcafee

[andypat]

So much spam getting through at mo , both my wife and I getting same spam, separate email addresses also  my mother is getting the same too.

Been going on a while now - anyone else getting them?

[RobG3]

Over the last few days the amount of spam I'm getting has reduced dramatically.

Have Virgin done something to resolve this at long last? 

[ALF28]

It is normal for spam to stop for a while but usually it does restart.

It is like betting on horse, favourites come in batches followed by long gaps.

Spammers rotate their distribution lists for better coverage.

My spam can stop for a week or more but always restarts, or perhaps virgin have switched on the spam filters or updated them?

However it is important for the spam to be detected by the spam filter and tagged as spam <SPAM> to highlight it may be dangerous/fake.

I assume virgin do update their spam filters.

I think reporting to action fraud does help, they are linked to gchq to stop cybercrime, but not all are stopped but more seem tagged as spam if reported, perhaps isp's become aware of the fraud emails and action fraud  communicate with the isp and servers transmitting spam/fraud/phishing.

I have sent another batch of 30 spam to action fraud today for November/December and still have June through till October spams  to send.

If everyone does report spam then action fraud will investigate the source/servers/isp etc.

Cyber fraud is now on a massive scale and by many counties, such as ransomware, bank fraud, phishing, vishing, smishing.

As the sender email address and IP  are usually different to the received email address/ip in spam email, this should easily be picked up by the filters as spoofing but does not seem to be the case with virgin spam filters, as the spam often gets through undetected.

Spammers set up an email to get the replies which may be an alias/or hacked email which they change often to avoid being blocked by authorities and server operators and makes it difficult to trace these fake spammers with spoofed identity.

alf28

[rogerm]

I've been sending spam to  report@phishing.gov.uk but its now stopped flooding the account. No more Mcafee renewals, Bitcoin profits. Amazon & Supermarket deals. 
In webmail, none of this rubbish gets into my own VM spam folder, so something further back has stopped sending the stuff.
Hope it stays like this!

[ALF28]

No improvement to my spam

no such luck of spam stopping, with my spam still flooding in today after a break, just one detected by virgin.

Still getting antivirus spam every week,  plus lidl and ariel

Spam originates from various sources.

The virgin spam filter is poor.

There may be a time delay before action fraud can process the spam and deal with it.

Virgin are not analysing the spam folders, even after all this time they can not filter the antivirus spam.

Obviously there is a disconnect between the forum feedback and the virgin security team, perhaps they should start reading the forum posts.

perhaps virigin media could use the recent price rise approx 5% to fund better security and justify the rise in fees???

The customer feedback should surely be acted upon or at least considered.

If virgin can not stop the spam, then they should allow the primary email address to be removed  or changed by the customer as can be done on most accounts. It should be possible to select a secondary address to become the default primary address.Virgin are enforcing customers to use a corrupted/spammed email address with the dangers of cyber crime. My gmail never lets spam through ever, nor outlook get no spam.

alf28

[Dirk44]

I have a number of these each day - some are from .fr and .br e-mail addresses - you can filter these out using "rules" in Outlook

[rogerm]

Filtering is not practical due to the enormous variety of sender email addresses.
Here's  a sample from a few days earlier this month

yldwdasqw@newsolx.com.br
pkznimvtp@zoosk.com
inxcljgxh@casinos-sfc.com
neihhxtaw@thepipingcentre.co.uk
fpijqxzbp@pointworld.com

[boothy99]

You could try the following filter that uses words or whole phrases taken from the spam's subject heading? 

Open a web browser & login to Virgin Web mail - https://mail2.virginmedia.com/

Top right of the page.....

Go to the 3-lines menu icon (top right of the page) /

Click menu icon  / 

Click Settings / 

Click Email menu (on left side of the page) / 

Click Filter Rules / 

Click Add New Rule box (top right of the page)

Now, type in a name for the filter - whatever you wish, just so you recognise it -

(mine is "MULTIPLE Spam - SUBJECT-REGEX (yellow)", ...

Click  "Add Condition" choose "Subject" .....

Now click on "Contains" & change it to "Regex"

Now - In the box below the word Regex type in the filters you wish to add (taken from parts of the spam subject headings). Separate each word or whole phrase with a "|" (no inverted commas), without any spaces in-between.

For example, see the following -

Norton|McAfee|Unable to authorise your payment details|CBD oil|Gummy|Gummies|Do you have chronic Pain

Be aware that the filter above would send ANY email with those words / phrases contained in it, including any from this forum that contain the words "Norton &/or McAfee" to the Spam folder !!!

Add your own filters as needed (now or later by editing the rule), but make sure to add the spacer bar in-between without any spaces...   |

Don't enter the entire subject heading. Only the parts that are constant / repeated / unwanted.

Then ....

Click Add Action

Choose File Into

Click Select Folder

Choose Spam from the box that opens

Click Add Action (again)

Choose Set Colour Flag - so that on Virgin Webmail, you could see whether the filter sent your rubbish to the spam folder, or Virgin did it (no colour flag).

Any colour will do.

IMPORTANT ....

Click "Save", and you should be done. It should look like this -

All or most of the spam-crud should be sent straight to your Spam folder, with the coloured flag of your choice showing alongside the crud if you view it on Virgin Webmail.

If sent to your Spam folder (rather than Bin) then Virgin's filtering system should eventually learn that it is what it is .... spam !!!

Hope this helps. Just remember that if you use the filter words above (Norton|McAfee), as a starter, that this forum alert's emails will also be sent to the spam folder 😏 

[chrisardy]

What the emails all have in common is that they are all nonsense email addresses which any half sensible human would recognise straight away as spam. I can't understand how any email system with a few bits of AI couldn't do the same!

Mind you the Virgin spell checker does not even recognise recognise as a correct word, so perhaps there is no hope!!

Still no reply from Virgin about my complaint.

[ALF28]

I use the subject filtering and find it works well.

check if your email is on a hacking list

see  Have I Been Pwned: Check if your email has been compromised in a data breach

In my own case my Contacts were also hacked and the the hacking dates back to approx 2007 when they got my work email and password and also my private email ntlworld.com. It was a concern to learn I was hacked at work. If an email is hacked they have your inbox and all your contacts and and in my case I had forwarded some emails from  one to another so they got my private email ntlworld.com and work email as they were linked with communication/contacts.

My emails and passwords are listed on Onliner Spambot in August 2017 and malicious software located on an ip address in the Netherlands containing711 million email addresses and associated passwords.

I have ceased using the ntlworld.com email but it still exists and gets a lot of spam/scam /fraud emails. and sometimes emails from old contacts that are fake.

The website  have I been pwned site will let you know if your email is hacked or your passwords.

The best defence is to regularly change the email password and have a strong password.

alf28

[ALF28]

spam emails- hidden dangers.

spam emails can contain a pixel in the images which "collects data" from your computer.

The next email could contain malware to attack the software on a computer.

I switch off html and view in text only  in email settings, which blocks images.

Not sure if virgin block images with a hidden pixel.?

In the past I am aware of hacking via an email constructed to hack the software used, an example would be lotus notes when it was used for email some time ago, so they get all your details, I used it in the past, free with older computers. the same may apply to any email client software installed.

Although dating back to 2017, the following bbc link is still valid and explains how spammers use emails to get data or infect with malware.

There are a multitude of techniques used by expert spammers/hacker, too many to mention here.

See-

Giant spambot scooped up 711 million email addresses - BBC News

Although the spam emails may look daft and obvious spam, they just want you to load an image, attachment, download or click on to fake website containing trojans or keyloggers etc., so all spam has the potential to be dangerous and needs avoiding at all cost. It is so easy to accidently clock on the links, I have done it myself. Hence spam detection is important.

alf28