A spamtrap is a
honeypot used to collect
spam
Spam most often refers to:
* Spam (food), a consumer brand product of canned processed pork of the Hormel Foods Corporation
* Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages
** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages
...
.
Spamtraps are usually
e-mail
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
addresses that are created not for communication, but rather to lure spam.
In order to prevent legitimate email from being invited, the e-mail address will typically only be published in a location hidden from view such that an automated e-mail address harvester (used by spammers) can find the email address, but no sender would be encouraged to send messages to the email address for any legitimate purpose. Since no e-mail is solicited by the owner of this spamtrap e-mail address, any e-mail messages sent to this address are immediately considered unsolicited.
The term is a
compound of the words "spam" and "trap", because a spam analyst will lay out spamtraps to catch spam in the same way that a fur trapper lays out traps to catch wild animals. The provenance of this term is unknown, but several competing anti-spam organizations claim trademark over it.
Industry uses
An untainted spamtrap can continue to collect samples of unsolicited messages that can be acted on by an automated anti-spam system. The automated system could instantly block any further e-mail messages with the same content, arriving for other e-mail addresses, because the messages would then be considered as bulk unsolicited e-mail, the typical definition of spam. Automation is considered "safe" because no legitimate email messages should be arriving to the spamtrap address.
The source IP address of a sender delivering e-mail to the spamtrap could also be added to a blacklist for source address blacklisting of e-mail.
Vulnerabilities
* A spamtrap becomes tainted when a third party discovers what the spamtrap e-mail address is being used for. Once this occurs, the third party could target the spamtrap by maliciously sending email to it giving the third party some control over the automated process of what is being considered bulk unsolicited e-mail by the anti-spam system. However, they would be able to subscribe a spamtrap address to an email list only if that list would not use
confirmed opt-in.
* Spammers using spamtrap addresses from their mailing lists as sender addresses can cause
backscatter
In physics, backscatter (or backscattering) is the reflection of waves, particles, or signals back to the direction from which they came. It is usually a diffuse reflection due to scattering, as opposed to specular reflection as from a mirror, ...
when a reply/DSN is sent to the spamtrap address.
* If the spammer puts a spamtrap mailbox address into the TO or CC line, when any of the other addresses "reply-all" or forward the message, it will cause that address to be considered spam, too.
* Many spamtrap addresses show up in search engine results, and anyone can write to these addresses without knowing that all mail will be caught as spam.
Usenet
A spamtrap can also be a
Usenet
Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...
newsgroup
A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start ...
whose sole purpose is to lure
cross-post
Crossposting, also known as x-posting or xposting, is the act of posting one message to multiple information channels; forums, mailing lists, or newsgroups. This is distinct from multiposting, which is the posting of separate identical messages, ...
ed spam. For example, the
alt.sex.cancel newsgroup charter states that any article posted there may be cancelled immediately. Thus, a spammer who cross-posts an article to the entire
alt.sex.* hierarchy, including alt.sex.cancel, will find that article is quickly cancelled.
See also
*
Project Honey Pot
*
Address munging
Address munging is the practice of disguising
an e-mail address to prevent it from being automatically collected by unsolicited bulk e-mail providers.
Address munging is intended to disguise an e-mail address in a way that prevents computer soft ...
*
Anti-spam techniques (e-mail)
Various anti-spam techniques are used to prevent email spam (unsolicited bulk email).
No technique is a complete solution to the spam problem, and each has trade-offs between incorrectly rejecting legitimate email (false positives) as opposed to ...
*
Botnets
A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send spam, and allow the attacker to access the device and its conne ...
*
E-mail address harvesting
Email harvesting or scraping is the process of obtaining lists of email addresses using various methods. Typically these are then used for bulk email or spam.
Methods
The simplest method involves spammers purchasing or trading lists of email addr ...
*
List poisoning
*
Stopping e-mail abuse
References
{{Spamming
Spamming