Spam Definition

Unsolicited or unwanted email used mainly for advertising

Spam is the term used for unsolicited, impersonal bulk electronic messages. Although email spam is the most common form of spamming, others exist, like mobile phone messaging spam and instant messaging spam.

Spam involves sending nearly identical messages to thousands (or millions) of recipients. Spammers use software robots, called spambots (also Web crawlers or Web spiders) in order to get valid email addresses from company Web sites, blogs and newsgroups. Common subjects of spam messages are pornographic or other sexually related Web sites, various financial services or get-rich-quick schemes and health products.

Spam messages normally have a fake origin address, which is randomly generated, in order to keep the author of the message from being easily discovered.

View the list of Local Resources that can assist Internet users in South Africa.

Glossary of Terms

Adware Botnet Cracking Crimeware Cyberbullying Cybercrime Cyberstalking Cyberterrorism Data-Theft DoS-Attack Hacking Hoax-Email Identity-Theft Keylogging Madware Malware Pharming Phishing Ransomware Scareware Smishing Social-Engineering Spam Spyware Trojan Virus Vishing Website-Defacement Worm