Spammers Technique of Bugging Email Stopped by Messagewash

By using a so called "web bug" spammers are able to determine which email addresses are active without any interaction of the recipient.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (PRWEB) August 31, 2004 -- "Most internet users are totally unaware how easy a spammer can validate an email address" said Henrik Hellerstedt, Messagewash's CTO, "by using a technique completely invisible to the victim."

Once a email address is validated, it can be sold or traded at a much higher price. Validated email addresses then gets much more spam, simply because the spammers know for a fact that someone is reading them, Hellerstedt said. "In addition to the regular spam message, the spammer adds a "web bug", a HTML tag which points to a image file, typically a 1 * 1 transparent gif, and sends the users email address along in the request to retrieve the image. Since the image is small and transparent the user notices nothing while the spammer can collect a list of email addresses at his web server."

Messagewash now features new technology that is able to disable web bugs in email, protecting their customers from spammers trying to validate their email address.

Messagewash can be evaluated freely for 30 days and prices start at $1 per protected email address at http://www.messagewash.com

Messagewash is a leader in managed email protection services. The company scans and cleans email before delivering it to its customers, using 5 different anti-virus engines and a 6 step spam filtering technique, making it a world leader in virus and spam protection. Messagewash customers have reported a record 99.7% accuracy in spam detection.