Beware of Spam!

ImageShack is a photo and imaging portal with photography tools and news.It lets people upload different types of photo formats, including Flash files(.swf). The flash files can be used for animated graphics and can also be used to automatically redirect people to other Web sites. Now one of the threating aspect, Spammers are abusing free Web services to make their spam links look more legitimate.. Spammers upload a Flash file then copy the link for that file which comes from ImageShack's domain in a spam message. If the link is followed, the Flash file redirects the victim to a spam site!

Here the spammers have an advantage over the anti-spam software as it scans the links in e-mail and block those e-mails with suspicious-looking ones. But ImageShack's domain is considered to have a good reputation, so messages won't be blocked. Google's Picasa photo service and Yahoo's Flickr don't allow Flash files. But still Spammers use Picasa to host images, which are then incorporated into spam messages!



Is a message spam?

To find out whether the message you got is spam, check out this.
From the header or batch of information that shows where an e-mail came from and the path it followed will be helpful if it came from a domain that has been prone to abuse and subsequently blocked.