What is Snowshoeing?
Snowshoeing, or snowshoe spamming, involves bad actors using multiple IP addresses and domains to send spam emails. Much like actual snowshoes distribute a person’s weight to avoid sinking into the snow, snowshoeing in the cyber world distributes a high volume of emails over a wide area of IP addresses to avoid spam filter detection.
How to Recognize This Threat: It may be tricky to recognize snowshoeing, as it’s typically designed so that each IP address distributes a low number of messages. That means many spam filtering technologies don’t catch and block all the messages, allowing a number to get through to inboxes. Often, snowshoe spammers use fake business names and fake identities, rather than bothering to attempt to achieve legitimacy.
How to Prevent This Threat: For those emails that do get through, training employees to spot spam messages is a must. Not only should they know what to look for, they should know not to click suspicious links or open attachments if they’re from potentially untrustworthy sources. With that layer of trained users, it’s also vital to have strong email security which may be able to catch snowshoers. Think Barracuda or SonicWall Email Security for a couple of strong options.