Spammers Harness YouTube

Using YouTube's "Share Video" function, spammers have found a way to reach right past filters.

With e-mail spam filters becoming more and more refined by the day, spammers have had to find new and innovative ways to keep their addresses off of blacklists. Their newest way to worm through: using YouTube.

By exploiting the YouTube feature that allows users to send links to their friends, spammers have found a way to send their own malicious messages from a trusted and unblocked address, service@youtube.com.

“Spammers are doing this to defeat spam filters and to lower the recipient’s guard by making it look as though the messages are coming from a perfectly innocuous email address,” said Bradley Anstis, director of product management for Marshal Internet security, in a statement. “YouTube’s own help center suggests that you exclude the service@youtube.com email address from spam filtering. The spammers are keenly aware of this.” Internet security,

As usual, the spam messages can be defeated with simple vigilance. Although YouTube offers a clean route into your inbox, opening the messages is harmless and the delete button will make quick work of whatever garbage finds its way through.