Dirty Spammers Getting Clever

We all get spam every day, and most of the time it's really obvious that it's spam. From the gibberish we get in our inboxes to the obviously fake pop-ups on so many websites, we can usually tell that it's just spam. Obviously somebody is clicking these and purchasing products, otherwise it wouldn't be so pervasive.

Some of them are more clever than others, though.

I came home from work today to a message on my screen. It happened to be a random IM via Skype. Note to Windows readers: I don't recommend opening the link in the screenshot below. Because you run Windows, you run the risk of that link installing malware of some kind.

I did click the link out of curiosity. Because I don't use Windows I'm not at risk of drive-by malware installations. The page is a fairly slick "System Scan" (Scam?) animation that I think could easily have fooled the average Windows user. Think Grandma or your less-than-savvy neighbor who double-clicks links and buttons in Internet Explorer because that's how they're used to interacting with Windows.

I'm simultaneously disgusted and impressed.