MX Logic – Spam Volume Declined but Percentage Level Surged in August

MX Logic, an online security firm, released its 'September 2009 Threat Forecast & Report' on August 26, 2009 wherein it said - the overall spam volume slumped slightly in the month of August but the percentage of spam against legitimate e-mails rose to 94.9%. In the month of July, this figure stood at 94.6%.

The report further revealed that health-related spam maintained their dominance over other types of spam detected. Of the total spam identified in August 2009, 68.8% were health-related messages, followed by offer-based messages that had a share of 12.3% in total junk messages. Gambling, foreign language and education related spam were other categories that made impact in August 2009.

Education-based spam had a share of 4.4%, Gambling-related spam accounted for 1.3% and foreign language-based spam represented 1.1% of total junk messages in August 2009. However, on comparing the rankings given in August with its previous month (July 2009), there was a slight change with foreign language spam descended to the fifth while gambling ascended to the fourth place. Gambling spam rose from over 0.8% of total junk messages in July to 1.3% in August, deceiving people with offers of making quick bucks and exploiting current economic conditions.

Moreover, the report states that the US continued to hold its top place of the highest spam producing country followed by Brazil. The US alone accounted for 13.3% of the global spam generation while Brazil stood second with 13.0%. China, which had been placed third in July 2009, was replaced by India as it contributed 5.6% of total junk messages. Other countries in the list of top five countries were Ukraine and Poland.

The security company revealed that the bogus UPS or DHL invoices formed the most popular theme used in e-mails that were laced with malware. In fact, this tactic was so popular in the month of August that it alone accounted for four out of five e-mail campaigns.

Finally, the report highlighted the top five malicious codes or computers worms for the month of August 2009. These include - Mal/BredoPk-B@MXL, Mal/Bredo-A@MXL, Mal/Behav-340@MXL, Troj/Agent-KVM@MXLM, and W95/Boza.c.intd.

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» SPAMfighter News - 9/11/2009