Xrumer

XRumer is a Windows program that posts forum spam with the aim of boosting search engine rankings. It has been claimed that the program is able to bypass techniques commonly used by many websites to deter automated spam, such as account registration, CAPTCHAs, and e-mail activation before posting. The program makes heavy use of a database of known open proxies in an attempt to make it more difficult for administrators to block posts.

In addition, the software can avoid the suspicions of forum administrators by first registering to make a post in the form of a question which mentions the spam product ("Where can I get...?"), before registering another account to post a spam link which mentions the product. The side effect of these innocent-looking posts is that helpful forum visitors may Google for the product and themselves post a link to help out, thus bolstering the product's Google stats without falling afoul of forum posting policies.

According to The Register, the latest version of XRumer can defeat CAPTCHAs of Hotmail and GMail. This enables the software to create accounts with these free email services, which are used to register in forums that it posts to.^{[1] [2]}

References

• Brian Kerbs (8 January 2007). "Scary Blogspam Automation Tools", Washington Post. Retrieved on 13 January 2007. 
• Conrad Askland. "Xrumer Link Scam - Black Hat SEO". Retrieved on 2007-01-13.
• "Malware targets bloggers", ITweb (3 August 2007). Retrieved on 30 August 2007. 

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