Spammers Exploit Internationalized Domain Name

 Analysis by: Florabel Baetiong

Spammers are now using IDN (Internationalized domain name) in spam URLs. IDNs are domain names or Web addresses that use non-English/non-ASCII characters.

Recent spam samples spotted used an IDN URL in Russian. In 2010, it was predicted that this could be exploited by spammers and now, it is already being used. There are also reported spammed messages that used shortened URLs pointing to links that uses IDN. These instances could mean that IDN URLs used for spamming could grow more in numbers as days go by.

Trend Micro product users are protected from this via the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network that detects the said spammed message.

 SPAM BLOCKING DATE / TIME: March 08, 2011 GMT-8
 TMASE INFO
  • ENGINE:6.5
  • PATTERN:8000