An Analysis of the Nature of Spam as Cybercrime

The continued rapid growth of the Internet and the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) have resulted in the increased sophistication of malicious software or crime-ware tools and the refinement of deceptive methods to conduct computer attacks and intrusions. Cyber attacks via spam emails (unsolicited bulk messages) remain one of the major vectors for the dissemination of malware and many predicate forms of cybercrime. Monitoring spam as potential cybercrime can help prevention by observing changes in attack methods including the type of malicious code and the presence of criminal networks. In this paper, we describe the nature and trends in spam borne malware. This paper outlines some of the issues and problems in respect to the spam in cybercrime and gives examples of known cases and offers insight to tackle spam problems.