Spam and Scam glossary

SPAMfighter is Europe's leading Anti Spam Filter developer, providing Spam Protection for hundreds of thousands of home and corporate users on PC's and Servers.

5,852,185 users are already Spam protected by SPAMfighter, and in the last 24 hours 3,881 new SPAMfighters joined the battle. If a SPAMfighter receives a spam mail that is not detected by SPAMfighter, the user reports the spam mail with one click, and it's removed from the rest of the SPAMfighters in seconds. 

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SPAMfighter Standard is a free tool for Outlook and Outlook Express that automatically and efficiently filters spam and phishing fraud.

Whenever new mail arrives, it will automatically be tested by SPAMfighter, and if it's spam, it will be moved to your spam folder. If you receive a spam mail that is not detected, click on a single button, and the spam mail is removed from the rest of the 5,852,185 SPAMfighters in 223 countries/areas in seconds. Download SPAMfighter Pro and try it 30 days for free. Private users will after the trial automatically get the 100% free SPAMfighter Standard and business users can continue to use SPAMfighter Pro after paying US$29.00.

Address Harvester
An Address Harvester is a robot that scans or "crawls" websites, Net news, forums etc. for anything that looks like a valid email address. This results in large amounts of email addresses which will be used to send out spam, or sold to spammer.
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Adware
Adware is software that has been installed on your computer without your knowing. Many freeware or shareware programs that you download from the Internet will install hidden programs, that send details such as i.e. your email, websites you visit etc. to an advertiser who can target you with popup ads (often even if your offline) and spam.
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Attachments
An attachment is a file that is sent along with an email message i.e. if you include a file with an outgoing email message. Be careful about attachments. Attachments can contain malicious programs, such as viruses and Trojan horses. If you receive an attachment from someone you do not know, you risk that it might be a virus or Trojan horse, which will be activated when you click on it!
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Bayesian filtering
A statistical approach to determining whether an email is spam. Based on probability inference techniques pioneered by English mathematician Thomas Bayes. Bayesian filtering does however demand extensive training to be effective.
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Blacklist
A blacklist is a list of people, IP addresses, or Url's that you have disallowed to send you email in your spam filter. You can blacklist people, IP addresses or Url's with SPAMfighter - get ithere.
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Blackhole list
A public list that contains IP addresses known to be sources of spam. This list can be used to easily create a network blacklist to filter out mail coming from one of these addresses. This list does, however, also often contain innocent email addresses, and therefore create a large amount of false-positives.
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Bulk mail
Bulk mail is another definition of spam mail. Bulk mail is mail consisting of large numbers of identical mails (often advertisements) sent to different names. See also spam or junk mail. You can filter Bulk mail with SPAMfighter - get it here.
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Chain letter
A chain letter is a letter that is sent successively to several people. Often these contains friendly greetings, but also terrible threats if you do not do as the Chain Letter says, forcing many people to Forward the mail "just to make sure" nothing bad happens. This is not SPAM in its pure form, but is also considered spam by many people. Note also, that these kinds of mails often contain large amounts of email addresses, which can be abused in the wrong hands.
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False negative
A false negative is when your anti-spam software fails to identify a spam message as spam.
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False positive
A false positive is when your anti-spam software identifies a legitimate message as spam. SPAMfighter comes with an automatic "real mail" protection, which means no false-positives.
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Hackers
Computer users who attempt to gain unauthorized access to sites or break into computer systems. Hackers often steal information from companies i.e. mailing lists, and sell these to spammers for a fee.
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Hash Buster
Hash Buster is a way for spammers to avoid getting their spam mail caught by spam filters - by inserting random generated content in each spam mail, often in the form of word-like patterns in the subject or content field, it will confuse spam-detecting software which looks for identical messages, because each wave of spam appear unique and individual to the filter.
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Headers
Headers are used to identify the sender and recipient of a message. A Header is the small information line that will appear at the top of a mail.
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Hijacking
Hijacking is an attack whereby an active, established session is intercepted by an attacker who wants to abuse your session. Hijacking can occur both via the Internet as well as locally, i.e. if a user leaves a computer unprotected making it possible for a spammer to pretend his mails are coming from someone else. See also Spoofing.
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Honeypot
A system or network with known vulnerabilities which looks attractive to hackers, crackers, and other unwanted attacking guests. A honeypot serves no real purpose and have therefore no legitimate activity, so if someone tries to interact with it, it will most likely be unauthorized or malicious activity. The connection will be closely watched by honeypots admins who collect in-depth information that can expose new tactics and tools on how these unwanted guests work and can track them as well.
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Joe Job
A Joe Job is the act of forging spam mail headers to make it look like it comes from someone whom the spammer will hurt. The victim will soon be flooded with bounces and angry replies.
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Junk Mail
Junk email is unsolicited advertisements often selling something or providing link to commercial websites. See also Spam or Bulk mail. You can filter Junk mail with SPAMfighter - get it here.
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Mail Loop
A situation where one automated mail triggers another which again triggers the first mail to reply etc. thus creating a mail loop.
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Mortgage Mail
One of the fastest growing categories of spam. Spam mails are issued by "Lead generators" who sell the information they receive from spam mails, to well known lenders such as Ameriquest and Quicken loans etc. These companies are unaware of the origin of their leads, but often buys a "hot lead" for as much as up to 80$. You can filter Mortgage Mail with SPAMfighter - get it here.
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Morph
To modify headers to avoid detection by automated software. Often the most common form of Morphing is to modify the "From:" line in an email.
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Mousetrap
A mousetrap is a java-script that makes it difficult to leave a website. When the reader tries to leave, a window pops up back at the website and preventing the user from clicking "Back" from a website. Often used when an advertiser gets paid per person who clicks on the client's website.
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Newsletters
A newsletter is a simple form of newspaper or information page that communicates to a target group. Newsletters are mostly legit, coming from a service the users might have been unaware that he or she accepted to get information from. The user is able to unsubscribe the Newsletters without any problems. Note: Always read the terms thorough when subscribing to a service with your email to find out weather or not they are allowed to send you newsletters of other information - and only submit and unsubscribe to services you know are legit, to prevent that you expose your email. If you are an author of a newsletter, learn how to make sure your readers receive your newsletter here.
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Nigerian Scam
Also known as 419 Scam. You receive an e-mail that seems to come from an official in Nigeria, asking you to help him transfer some money. This is a kind of spam that could - in the worst case - get you killed. In the best case, if you fall for one these criminals' spam mails, you will "just" lose your money. Read more about Nigerian Scammers, click here. You can filter Nigerian scam mails with SPAMfighter - get it here.
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Opt-in
Opt-in is the process of accepting to receive mail from a sender - newsletter, information etc. This is usually done when you subscribe to some sort of service, newsgroup or product. In some cases, double opt-in, you have to confirm your subscription from a verification email.
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Opt-out
The process of unsubscribing a mail service or declining to receive future emails from a sender. Legit email marketers or newsletters services have an easy and clear way of opt-out.
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Phishing
Phishing is a scam, although one of the newer ones, that tries to lure your hard-earned money right out of your wallet. And technically it's a well-done scam, which takes advantage of peoples trust in legal enterprises. Read more about phishing, clickhere. You can filter Phishing mails with SPAMfighter - get it here.
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Porn Spam
By fare the most burdening spam category. This form of spam advertises all forms of pornographic material. It is constantly getting more and more aggressive and changes forms and procedures often in the quest of driving traffic to their sites. You can filter Porn Spam with SPAMfighter - get it here.
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Potent Spam
E-mails which advertise and promote products to help men with their sex life such as Viagra. It is however often fake drugs that are sold, some without effect and some cause potential health risk. Read more about the dangers of buying drugs online, clickhere. You can block spamcontaining Potent Spam mails - get it here.
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Ratware
Mass mailing virus and email software used by spammers, designed to send as much mail as possible in as short time as possible.
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Robot
In Internet terms, a Robot is a program that is designed to automatically go out and explore the Internet for different purposes. This can also be called a worm or a crawler/webcrawler, spiders, worms, and can be used both to index content on the Internet, as Google crawlers do, or to garter other kind of information, such as email addresses.
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Spam
Unsolicited e-mail sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services. Also called "Junk" or "Bulk"  mail. We all see spam - unwanted mass-mails - in our mail-boxes every day. To read more about Spam and its origin, click here. Spamfighter is an award winning Anti Spam software, used by over 1,000,000 users worldwide. You can also be protected from spam by getting the FREE version of SPAMfighter - get it here.
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Spam traps
An email that exists with one purpose - to attract spam. Some website operators deploy such addresses to be harvested by spambots, and can thereby monitor and study spam attacks to this otherwise unused and uncirculated address.
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Spambait
Invalid email addresses that are deliberately planted on a website with the expectations that they will be harvested by a spambot and thereby pollute the output and destroying the business for the spammers. It is even possible to place elements that trap spambots in loops or generate large amounts of invalid email addresses to counterstrike spammers even more.
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Spambot
A computer program that is designed to visit or "crawl" random websites and newsgroups, while collecting or "harvesting" everything that looks like valid email addresses for inclusion on spam lists.
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Spamfighter
The good guys. The ones who actively work against spam and tries to do something about the problem. You can also become a SPAMfighter, by using our Anti Spam software - get it here. 
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Spamfilter
A spamfilter is software that filters all incoming mail and sorts them in what is normal mail and what seems like spam. Spamfilters can be deployed on the network where the spam will be detained before you download it (i.e. our SPAMfighter SMTP antispam server, SPAMfighter exchange module or hosted spam filter) or on your computer where it will be detained after you download it (i.e. our Anti Spam Filter for Outlook/Outlook express - get it here.).
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Spammer
A spammer is a person who sends spam! Believe it or not, many people actually react on spam mails and some actually buy something from spam mails. Even though it is only a very small percentage of people who receive a spam mail who react to it, it is still a very lucrative business for most spammers. Some easy steps to prevent getting spam: 1. Install a SPAMfighter Anti Spam Filter. 2. Never open or react to spam mails!
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Spamnest
A company or a place that generates and allows the production and sending of spam.
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Spamware
Spamware is any kind of software for spammers, i.e. robots, spiders, crawlers, harvesters etc. and also the software spammers use to send out mails.
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Spider
A program designed to search the Internet. See also Robots.
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Spim
Spam not only occurs by e-mail, but also by instant messaging like ICQ, Messenger and Skype. This phenomenon has been dubbed "Spim". Read more about Spim, click here.
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Spoofing
Spoofing is when a spammer or scammer fakes his origin or pretends to be someone else i.e. of a sent mail, where the header is made to appear from someone other than who it really is. This is often the case when someone sends you either phishing mails, making it look like it came from a legitimate sender to try to trick you.
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Spyware
Software that contains third-party software which is used to monitor the users behavior. The user is unaware of the installation of this software which often takes form as a Trojan Horse, monitoring your web browser activity and sending the information to the author of the spyware. A powerful tool to datamine user activity and collect marketing information.
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Stock mail
This is a scam, where spam emails hype shares of a company of which the spammer has previously acquired stocks. If sufficient people react to the spam mail and start placing orders on the specific stocks, the market value of the stock rises, and the spammers can sell with a profit. This is also known as PUMP and DUMP. You can filter Stock mail by using SPAMfighter - get it here.
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Trojan Horse
A program that is disguised and installs code that can counteract security or opening access to you computer, thereby letting hackers in.  It can also perform other tasks such as gathering identity-information to be abused. The name origins from the Trojan War, where Greek soldiers hid inside a large wooden horse, only to sneak out at night and attack the Trojans from the inside.
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Unsolicited Commercial E-mail
See spam.
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Vertical Spam
Spam consisting of large numbers of messages sent to a single newsgroup, either as a mistake from a newbie, or as deliberate attempt to drown out a newsgroup. Also know as Flooding.
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Virus Mail
A mail containing a piece of software designed to make additional copies of itself and spreading from computer to computer typically without the users knowing. Viruses can be very harmful, but can also be used to garther information for use to spammers, i.e. email addresses etc.
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Web bug
Web bugs are methods for spammers to validate email addresses. A small graphic inserted in a spam mail, notifies the spammer when the messages is read or previewed. This is why we recommend that you disable the preview function in your SPAMfolder. This way you do not accidentally open a spam mail and verify your email. This is also known as Bacon URL.
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White-hat
The good guys... us ;) see also Spamfighter. If you also want to join the war against spam and be a White-hat or spamfighter, get the free Anti Spam client for Outlook and Outlook Express here.
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Whitelist
A list of email addresses, IP addresses or domains that is trusted by a user and therefore approved be delivered, bypassing the spam filters.
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Zombie
A zombie computer is a computer that has been hacked into, or taken over by hackers. Usually the owner is unaware that he has released a virus or installed a Trojan Horse which enables the computer to work as a Zombie. Now the hacker can use the infected computer to launch an attack or send out spam to other computers without the owners knowing.
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