Flash being used in spam emails

Spammers often include links in their messages directing to web sites. These links are most of the time in the form of a URL including .html, .htm, .asp, .php or something similar.

A new spam trick includes now to include an URL directing to an Flash animation with the .swf extension. Most browsers will play the Flash movie even if this one isn’t embedded in an .html page.

The Flash contains no animation but a redirect to a web site with the spammers offer.

Commtouch reports that the messages arrived in small quantities on Saturday, and by Monday, July 28, had become a massive outbreak. 7000 URLs have been created and used in millions of spam messages.