UK - One in 253.6 E-mails Links to Phishing Activities

According to a new report from the security company 'MessageLabs,' the United Kingdom has witnessed one in every 253.6 e-mails as linked to some phishing activity during January 2010. On the global front, this rate has reached one out of every 562.3 e-mails on an average.

The report also finds that the country most preferred for launching phishing attacks is the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, spam level in the country has dropped slightly to 90%.

Phishing attempts in the USA are recorded at the rate of one in every 1,558 e-mails, while in Canada it is one in 811.5. Germany has phishing attempts at the rate of one in 1,351, while in The Netherlands, it is one in 2,573. Australia has one phishing e-mail out of every 1,156 e-mails, Hong Kong one in 1,663 and Japan one in 1,888.

Apart from these countries, Denmark also has the highest spam-ridden e-mails during January 2010 where 94% of all e-mails have come as junk mails.

According to MessageLabs, the maximum volume of spam in January 2010 has originated from botnets. The company's security researchers discovered that botnets were responsible for 83.4% of the total spam. A lot of other spam mails originated via Web-mail. This (webmail) medium continues to be widely used by spammers although the ISPs have adopted new security measures, reports MessageLabs.

Another interesting finding of the report is the high and low activity of the Lethic botnet. This botnet, which made its debut in December 2009, had sent slightly more than 5% of the total junk e-mails during the 1st week of January 2010 before vanishing mysteriously.

Paul Wood, Senior Analyst, MessageLabs, indicated that the botnet's disappearance might have been due to another botnet. According to him, the creation of Lethic was probably the work of the makers of botnet Bagle, as reported by V3 on January 23, 2010.

Lastly, MessageLab's report highlights that during January 2010, the Engineering industry has received the maximum volume of spam at the rate of 95.1%. Spam rates in other sectors have stood on 92.3% in Retail, 92.1% in Education, 91.5% in IT Services, 91.0% in Chemical & Pharmaceutical, 90.1% in Finance and 89.3% in the Public Sector.

Related article: US Passes Baton to Asia in Spam Relay

» SPAMfighter News - 2/1/2010