Thirty Percent of Mobile Spam Comes From iMessage Accounts

[Maura]

According to MacRumors, new research has found that iMessage accounts are responsible for 30% of all spam messages on mobile devices.

The research was carried out by security expert Tom Landesman, and spambusters Cloudmark, with Landesman saying that there are a variety of reasons why the iMessage platform is such a hit with spammers.

“That fusion of the desktop and mobile world makes it particularly easy for scammers to write a Mac OS script that can send messages to all types of devices just as fast as Apple will allow,” said Landesman. “It’s almost like a spammer’s dream. With four lines of code, using Apple scripts, you can tell your Mac machine to send message to whoever they want.”

Using iMessage, spammers can send spam to a user’s emails and phone numbers. This has been helped by the Mac Messages client being able to verify numbers with the iMessage network, making it easy to send spam mail to confirmed users, says MacRumors.

Apple has tried to tackle the iMessage spam problem by imposing a rate limit on sent messages, and also introducing a tool for reporting spam, but as MacRumors says, the latter is not exactly easy to use.

Sources: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/08/21/research-imessage-30-mobile-spam-messages/

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/apples-imessage-is-being-taken-over-by-spammers/

 

[skimonkey]

Yup...I have noticed this quite a bit these past several months. I never used to get these when I first had my iPhone, but lately its been more frequent.

Seems like weekly I have won a trip for two to Hawaii!