Dragon Boat Festival: Now Driving Away Spam Too

The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as the Duanwu Festival, is an important traditional holiday that has been celebrated by Chinese people as well as other people in East Asian societies for nearly 2,000 years. It is a day for people to drive away epidemics and evil spirits in summer by holding a series of symbolic activities because in ancient times, summer was considered to be a season of bugs, snakes, and fleas that could cause serious diseases.

There are several traditions followed on this day, such as holding a dragon boat race, eating sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo (Zong zi), drinking realgar wine (Xionghuangjiu), and wearing perfumed medicine bags. Many of these activities involve some sort of commercial component—and spammers will never miss a good opportunity to make a profit.

This year, the Dragon Boat Festival is going to be celebrated on June 12, 2013. In the lead-up to this festival, Symantec has blocked a large amount of spam associated with it.

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Figure. Sample email associated with the Dragon Boat Festival

Symantec would like to remind customers to be cautious when dealing with unsolicited emails containing suspicious links. If you are tired of dealing with endless spam, Symantec offers advanced anti-spam products that will prevent unwanted emails arriving in your inbox. Symantec wishes you a very happy, and spam-less, Dragon Boat holiday!