Excel Latest Vehicle for 'Pump-and-Dump' Spam

[R4D10Active]

"Pump-and-dump" spammers have found a new package for their scam: Excel files.
Commtouch researchers reported the appearance of pump-and-dump spam in Excel files for the first time on July 21. The spam promotes stocks in file attachments with names such as "invoice20202.xls," "stock information-3572.xls" and "requested report.xls."

"Excel is a logical progression from older formats, and the spammers are always looking for something new to bypass anti-spam engines," said Rebecca Steinberg Herson, senior director of marketing for Commtouch, in Sunnyvale, Calif.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759...119TX1K0000594