The spam mail in your inbox could be a terrorist's handiwork

NEW DELHI: Watch out! The spam mail that just hit your inbox could be a encrypted information from a terrorist to his companions.

With terrorists using internet and other communication technologies to plan, plot and carry out their subversive activities, intelligence agencies reckon that some of the millions of spam mails that are sent out daily, could be the handiwork of these groups.

"Numerous softwares and websites are now available through which one can easily send spam to numerous e-mail account holders. Terrorists, who are now more tech savvy than before are sending out encrypted messages to millions including the one actually it is meant for," a senior Home Ministry official said.

Explaining the rationale behind sending out a secret message to millions to avoid any risks, the official said, "99 per cent of the people don't even bother to check spam mails which usually get delivered in the spam box because of strong firewall of e-mail service providers. Usually people just delete them. Moreover, the message is in encrypted form and hence any ordinary person would not be able to decipher it."

Adding to spam mails, multimedia files like pictures, audio and video files are another source of sending coded information.