There are growing numbers of reports of spammers using people's Gmail accounts to send out links to pharmacy sites. I've actually seen one such message, sent to a mailing list by someone whose account had obviously been taken over. The spam actually involved a double hack. Not only had the spammer hijacked the sender's Gmail account, but they had also compromised a third-party website. The body of the spam consisted of a link to a page on that website, which then redirected to the spammer's pharmacy site.

I confess that I did get some small amusement out of the fact that the hijacked website belonged to the Front National, the French fascist far-right, nationalist party.

There's also some reason to think that the China-based scammers who have been hijacking Hotmail accounts to send pitches for their fake e-commerce sites are also able to compromise Gmail accounts. A blog post by one victim describes how what sounds very much like the same gang used his Gmail account to send out their spam — and also suggests that the fake electronics merchants and the knock-off shoes and boots sellers may be part of the same operation.