Articles on Image Spam from CSOonline

Over at CSOonline.com Scott Berinato has two accessible articles on image spam. The first “The Scourge of Image Spam,” is a brief introduction with a series of examples showing how text can be manipulated to fool antispam filters. The manipulations may include the use of symbols, changing the letter ordering, or the addition of HTML.

The second article, Image Spam: By the Numbers lists a series of graphical techniques used by spammers along with examples for each technique. The examples include graphical word splitting, animated GIFs, and geometric variance (individualized images, but with the same text.)