Usually, when victims find out their account has been hacked or hijacked, serious damage has already been done. But there’s a new illegal activity that cybercriminals are employing — and it’s done in plain sight. Distributed spam distraction involves sending thousands of spam email, and they do more than cause distractions.

One of the most frustrating things about using email is seeing dozens of spam messages every day. Fortunately, they’re just minor annoyances that are easy to remove from your inbox. However, hackers have developed a way to make spam much more insidious.