Denial of Service (DoS)

Denial of Service, or DoS, attacks have been the product of spamming. This typically happens in forums or newsgroups wherein a spammer posts excessive numbers of senseless messages in order to get rid of resources or other legitimate posts. This practice has become known as sporgery because of the fact that many times the spammer will mask themselves as regular posters, assuming their identity to spread their message.

Spammers have targeted such prominent newsgroups as alt.religion.scientology and news.admin.net-abuse.email, as well as countless other discussion fora over the years.

Mailbombing is a common reference to attacks via email. There are a number of well known attacks of this nature, some that continue today. These attacks, as opposed to targeting specific people, tend to target entire groups in an effort to cease discussions taking place about certain topics. The purpose of this type of spam can be to simply disrupt the discussions taking place, or they can be used for the purpose of advertising, like what happened with the alt.sex newsgroups when people went in and spammed advertising for commercial porn sites.

In some situations, spammers use email for harassment purposes. In this instance, the spammer will send out hundreds or even thousands of spam messages, and sign those messages with the name of the person they want to create trouble for. Many people who receive these messages will assume that the name in the email is the name of the person who actually sent the message, and take action against them instead of the actual spammer. The victim of this malicious deed actually ends up getting victimized twice - once by the spammer itself when their name is plastered all over spam emails, and again when the people who receive the spam seek retribution against the person they think sent them the messages.

Another malicious activity of spammers is when they send spam that contains viruses, trojans, or worms in order to infect as many computers as possible. In some situations, the computers that become infected can be controlled from a remote location to do additional spamming or to perform attacks. They can also be used to collect people's personal information with the intent of identity theft. This is why it is especially important to screen emails thoroughly before opening them, especially if they contain an attachment and are from someone unknown, and to keep personally identifying and financial information off of your computer.

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