Gmail improves anti-spam capability, blocks emails with suspicious letter combinations

Google's Gmail service received another upgrade in its already formidable spam-fighting capability, this time with the ability to block messages with suspicious letter combinations.

Mark Risher of Google's Spam and Abuse Team said Gmail's spam filtering can now handle "duplicitous" Unicode Homoglyphs including international characters.

"Scammers can exploit the fact that I, O and ο look nearly identical to the letter o, and by mixing and matching them, they can hoodwink unsuspecting victims. Can you imagine the risk of clicking 'ShIppingSite' vs. 'ShoppingSite' or 'MyBank' vs. 'MyB?nk'?" Risher said in a blog post.

"To stay one step ahead of spammers, the Unicode community has identified suspicious combinations of letters that could be misleading, and Gmail will now begin rejecting email with such combinations," he added.

He said they will use an open standard, the Unicode Consortium's “Highly Restricted” designation, which balances legitimate uses of these new domains and those likely to be abused.

Risher said this new capability comes a week after Google announced support for non-Latin characters in Gmail "as a first step towards more global email."

He added they want to ensure such characters "aren't abused by spammers or scammers trying to send misleading or harmful messages."

"We’re rolling out the changes today, and hope that others across the industry will follow suit. Together, we can help ensure that international domains continue to flourish, allowing both users and businesses to have a tête-à-tête in the language of their choosing," Risher said. — Joel Locsin /LBG, GMA News