Security Basics: RE: New Spam Technique

["Chinnery, Paul" <PaulC () mmcwm com>]

Our anti-spam engine catches many of them so they don't even make it into our "mail stream."  We use Trend's ScanMail 
product which examines all email coming in so what the anti-spam doesn't catch and move to junk box, Scanmail will 
check for viruses/malware.  I agree, blocking pdf's just isn't possible considering the number of authentic pdf's 
organizations get each day.  It comes down to a case of acceptable risk.

Paul Chinnery
Network Administrator
Memorial Medical Center


-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce () securityfocus com
[mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com]On Behalf Of Nick Duda
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 8:26 PM
To: tony barry; Security Basics Forum
Subject: RE: New Spam Technique


Anything is always possible related to payloads and malware....thats a given.
 
Your dealing with pretty muchall of us are dealing with, I'd like to know what others are doing to combat this. We use 
PDF via email lots, and for me to block it would be bad. For me to Qtine it would be bad, even with somethign like and 
EUQ solution.
 
PDF sizes vary, so blocking based on size is hard. My employees are starting to complain about this, and I can't figure 
out a solution that is rock hard to block the bad and pass the good.
 
What are others doing? We get hundred of these a day, if not more!

________________________________

From: listbounce () securityfocus com on behalf of tony barry
Sent: Thu 7/19/2007 3:04 PM
To: Security Basics Forum
Subject: New Spam Technique



Hi List,

We operate several mail servers with catch all accounts and have noticed
a lot of Mailer Daemon 'delivery failed messages mails from genuine
sites (mostly German)arriving recently. It would seem the spammers are
sending out e-mails with a PDF attachment and a forged senders address
to bogus recipients at these organizations whose mail server rejects the
message and sends notification to the forged sender. We have opened one
attachment on an isolated machine and it was one of the 'watch these
stocks they're going through the roof messages (not exactly sure of the
details as my German is a bit rusty). My concern is that there could be
a 'payload' embedded in the PDF. Is this possible?


--
The Simple Server Company
PO Box 51528
Pakuranga
Auckland

021 413642  09 5768552

http://www.simpleserverco.com <http://www.simpleserverco.com/> 

This e-mail and any attached files transmitted with it are confidential
and intended solely for the use of the addressees. If you have recieved
this e-mail in error please inform the sender by sending a reply and
delete this message.