World Cup Spam: The Inbox is the Goal; Spammers Attack With Fraudulent (and Just Plain Irritating) World Cup Messages

While the football forwards are playing offense on the
field, spammers are making offensive maneuvers of their own, trying to
leverage the World Cup for their own gain. Commtouch (Nasdaq:CTCH), a
leading provider of anti-spam software, has identified tens of
thousands of World Cup-related spam messages, with some containing
what appear to be fraudulent offers.
   World Cup spam has emerged in almost every language, and while
some of it is actually related to the month-long football games taking
place in Germany, most of it mentions the World Cup in order to sell
typical spam offerings such as mortgages, online gambling and travel.
Here are some examples of categories of spam and their related "World
Cup" subjects:

   Mortgage refinance

   --  World Cup extra cashback offer plus new quicker payments

   Gambling/casinos:

   --  join the world cup tipping to win $10,000 in cash!

   --  kick off the world cup with a fantastic free bet basket!

   --  free world cup prediction game: your last chance to join!

   Travel packages & other products:

   --  fantastic family holidays in the sun plus live world cup
        coverage

   --  win a vip trip to the 2006 world cup final

   --  World Cup Special: Try our 32 different flavors (Spanish)

   Innovative ways to view the World Cup/Ticket Offers:

   --  See the World Cup on your PC (Spanish)

   --  2006 FIFA World Cup now on mobile plus semi-final tickets to
        be won!

   --  Germany 2006 World Cup. Tickets in hand!

   "Spammers are trying to ride the World Cup's wave of popularity.
They are promoting travel, mortgages, betting schemes, and even a few
things that are actually related to the football games," said Amir
Lev, President and CTO of Commtouch. "These spammers send their
unsolicited messages to millions of people in the hopes that even a
tiny percentage will purchase their services, legitimate or not. The
convergence of spam and malware -- such as viruses and spyware -- can
make such attacks even more dangerous."
   Commtouch's Global Detection Centers handles and inspects billions
of email messages on a monthly basis, in order to detect and block
spam and malware outbreaks in real time.

   About Commtouch

   Commtouch Software Ltd. (Nasdaq:CTCH) is dedicated to protecting
and preserving the integrity of the world's most important
communications tool -- email. Commtouch has over 15 years of
experience developing messaging software and is a global developer and
provider of proprietary anti-spam and Zero-Hour virus protection
solutions. Using core technologies including RPD (Recurrent Pattern
Detection(TM)), the Commtouch Detection Center analyzes billions of
email messages per month to identify new spam and malware outbreaks
within minutes of their introduction into the Internet. Integrated by
more than 30 OEM partners, Commtouch technology protects thousands of
organizations, with over 35 million users in 100 countries. Commtouch
is headquartered in Netanya, Israel, and has a subsidiary in Mountain
View, CA. For more information, see: www.commtouch.com, including the
Commtouch online lab detailing spam statistics and charts.