Spam Volume Drops, but Spammers Find New Techniques

MessageLabs highlights in its Intelligence 2008 Security Report that spam volume has declined slightly from 2007 although spammers have discovered new techniques to distribute their sales promoting spam mails as well as malware.

The report states that the total spam rates averaged 81.2% this year (2008) against 84.6% in 2007. Botnets distributed a major 90% of spam until the two US ISPs, held responsible for hosting the control and command servers of some large botnets that pushed out 50% of the entire spam, were shut down in the autumn.

But since then, botnets have found alternative service providers, leading to a comeback of spam rates by nearly the amount as before the shutdown. A frightening trend, as per the report, relates to the capability of spammers to break into "Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" (CAPTCHA) techniques to create huge number of e-mail accounts from reputable e-mail service providers.

According to Chief Security Analyst of MessageLabs, Mark Sunner, 2008 has been an important year for the internet security industry because new malware emerged and traditional malware evolved, with the internet becoming more sophisticated and users becoming more knowledgeable about the Web, as reported by TheJournal on December 9, 2008.

Mark Sunner further said that CAPTCHA cracking turned out to be a great way to distribute spam, and many types of spam released from non-chargeable Web-mail and sites for social networking that require personal e-mail accounts to send the messages.

Furthermore, as per the company, although Srizbi has continued to exist, it could not link to its control and command servers. Competing networks of bots, which though are turning this slack to their advantage, have been so far unable to reach their earlier levels. Also, Srizbi is still falling behind its normal activity level and may find alternative service providers, bringing the number of spam mails back to previous levels.

Moreover, Anti phishing Working Group (APWG) too has shown that the number of malware-infecting websites has become three fold this year, with phishers becoming smarter and more refined in their phishing campaigns.

Related article: Spam Scam Bags a Scottish Connection

» SPAMfighter News - 17-12-2008

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