Symantec Releases State of Spam Report for August 2008

As per the State of Spam Report for August 2008 by Symantec, issued in September 2008, Symantec's security researchers informs that besides using fake and meaningless news items in August 2008, hackers worked hard for circulating malware to the inboxes of users.

The finding of the report also claimed that hackers try to surpass spam filters by linking to malware instead of attaching it to message. This trend indicates the rise in the number of messages referred to online services.

Further, as per the report, more than one-quarter of the total spam messages referred to online services, a rise of 9% since June 2008.

Editor of the monthly spam report at Symantec, Dermot Harnett, express his concern at the increase in spam and said that this is a very big and huge percentage increase, as reported by itbusiness.ca on September 8, 2008.

Further, the report statistics reveal the overall spam has shot up by estimating for eight out of every 10 mail messages. Symantec also added in its monthly spam report that for the past many months, the statistics has remained consistent but higher than the 71% of all mail a year ago.

Giving some instances of the spam sent by hackers to surpass spam filters, security experts and analysts said that if the selection of John McCain for neophyte, "Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin" to fill the Republican Party's presidential for second half was not exciting enough, hackers also claimed Paris Hilton is the another running candidate. Some of the other news used by hackers to surpass spam filters was Olympics 2008 and the US Elections.

Security researchers also said that the headline was luring enough to prompt users into clicking on the attached URL to view the news. If it surpassed the spam filters, it would download malware on system of the user.

Security researchers added that hackers are making use of real world events to circulate spam. Dermot also claims that accessing news stories to circulate malware has become an ongoing trend for hackers.

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» SPAMfighter News - 9/18/2008