{"id":116075,"date":"2021-02-27T14:58:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-27T19:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/?p=116075"},"modified":"2021-08-01T13:11:10","modified_gmt":"2021-08-01T17:11:10","slug":"5-reasons-to-never-unsubscribe-from-spam-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/5-reasons-to-never-unsubscribe-from-spam-email\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons to Never Unsubscribe from SPAM Email"},"content":{"rendered":"\"5<\/a>We all get unsolicited commercial emails, aka SPAM. Cisco’s Talos estimates<\/a> that in January 2021 86% of emails sent were SPAM emails. That means that of the almost 145 billion emails sent 122 billion were SPAM email. The math works out to over 6 SPAM emails for each legit email. At best SPAM is annoying. At its worst, SPAM can be a threat to your PC and your personal information. SPAM email is a threat because 94% of malware is delivered by email<\/a>, and one in every 3,000<\/a> email messages contains malware a payload.\r\n

SPAM email is big business<\/h3>\r\n\"SPAMers\"<\/a>SPAMers can make millions per year. TechRadar<\/a> says an <\/em>average full-time SPAMer makes around $7,000 a day – over $2.5 million a year. They can make this kind of money because email spam costs them very little to send. Most of the costs of SPAM is paid by the recipient and the carriers. The SPAMers do not have to pay for all the internet bandwidth tied up in the delivery of their spam emails.\r\n\r\nSPAMers send out millions of messages on behalf of online merchants who want to sell a product. SPAMers get paid for sending SPAM email messages, regardless of whether recipients buy any of the advertised products. They also re-sell their SPAM emails lists to other SPAMers. SPAMers can get up to $22,000 for a list<\/a> of stolen email credentials. In some cases, these cybercriminals also get a percentage of the sale. For pharmaceuticals, the commission can be as high as 50%<\/a>. A good example is “penis-related spam” which has a 5% click rate, meaning that 5% of the recipients actually open the spam mail and click on the link in the mail.\r\n

Why you get SPAM emails<\/h3>\r\nThere are a number of reasons why you get SPAM emails.\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. \"victimYou are the victim of a data breach<\/strong>. Any company you do business with could be vulnerable. Check haveibeenpwned<\/a> to see if your account has been compromised – smaller breaches might not be listed.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. You posted your email address online. You put it on Facebook or other social media<\/strong>, on a website, or as a public comment. Once on the web, your email is considered fair game for SPAMers.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. At some time you opted in or neglected to opt out<\/strong>. When you signed up for something, buried somewhere was that little checkbox. You didn\u2019t indicate you\u2019d rather be left alone. The service for which you opted-in is either inundating you or they shared your email address with interested parties.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    Never unsubscribe from a SPAM email<\/h3>\r\n\"The<\/a>So how do you stop SPAM from flooding your inbox? The first step is do not unsubscribe from SPAM<\/strong>. Ignore the convenient \u201cunsubscribe\u201d button<\/strong> at the bottom of the message from the Nigerian prince. The \u201cunsubscribe\u201d button is a scam. <\/strong>The cyber-criminals to get more info about you and increase the number of SPAM emails you receive<\/strong>.\r\n

    1. When you unsubscribe, you confirm to the sender that your email address is valid and in active use. SPAMers now know the account is active and the volume of SPAM you receive will most likely go up. Now that you have validated your address, the SPAMer will sell it to his SPAMer friends. Now you will get SPAM from a completely new source.<\/p>\r\n

    A Federal Trade Commission study found that more than half the time<\/a>, responding to a “remove me” option resulted in either no change or more spam emails.<\/p>\r\n

    2. In addition to giving away your email address, unsubscribing delivers lots of information about your email software. Emails contain meta-information that hackers can use to devise attacks.<\/p>\r\n

    3. When you respond to the SPAM email, SPAMers think you are interested in the subject matter\u2014whether it\u2019s getting money from a foreign prince<\/a>, a penny stock tip<\/a>, or a diet supplement<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

    4. If your response opens up a browser window, you\u2019re giving away even more information about yourself. By opening a browser SPAMers learn information about your:<\/p>\r\n\r\n