Antivirus specialist Panda Software said that it has detected "massive amounts" of spam that are distributed to push sales of stocks of West Excelsior Enterprise. The messages try to convince recipients to purchase the company's stock over the next five days. If successful, the spam attack could result in an increase of the value of West Excelsior's stock.

Panda said that it appears to be a "highly organized attack" in which several waves of spam are coordinated. The effect of the emailing is unclear at this time: West Excelsior' stock, which is traded under the OTC symbol WEXE, shows a jump of the firm's stock on Monday of this week from $0.95 to $1.13. The stock peaked on Tuesday at $1.18 on Tuesday, but sine then has lost dramatically in value and currently trades for $0.88. According to Panda, the first wave of the spam attack was sent out on Friday.

West Excelsior Enterprise, a company which says is a "junior exploration company actively acquiring, exploring, and developing early stage mineral resource properties," announced last Saturday, November 11, that it has joined the OTC board in a private placement of 343,750 restricted common shares at a price of $0.80 per share for total proceeds of $275,000. On average, the stock has traded in volumes of about 20,000 per day, but showed jumps to more than 100,000 on Friday (the day of the placement) and Monday.

Source : Tom's Hardware US