Spam Levels Drop in Q4 2009 but Overall Rates Still Surging

A new threat report of security firm 'McAfee' for Q4 2009 observed a fall in spam, but the year culminated with rising amount of spam.

In Q3 2009, the spam level had stood at 175 Billion per day and it dropped to 135 Billion per day in Q4, a decline of 24%. However, spam levels are expected to soar in the wake of 40% rise in a singe day (December 14, 2009) when spammers tried to make maximum from the last minute shoppers.

The report noted that although a fall was witnessed in Q4 2009, the overall past trend continued to point upwards. In contrast to Q4 2008, the volume of spam was up 35%.

According to McAfee's estimations, nearly 135.5 Billion spam e-mails were circulated per day throughout 2009. In 2008, the level had stood at 122 Billion per day and in 2007, it was at 76.5 Billion per day.

Mike Gallagher, McAfee Labs' Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, states that a drop in the spam activity was observed in Q4, with execution of different types of threats. A few interesting trends evolving in terms of geographic distribution of cyber threats were also identified, as reported by AlphaTrade Finance on February 9, 2010.

In terms of execution of SQL-injected threats and zombie production, China emerged as the global leader, though Internet-based cyber assaults played a more prominent role. This trend will continue in 2010 as cyber assailants aim renowned social destinations.

Moreover, a steep fall was witnessed in zombie production in the US, which was 9.5% in Q4 against 13.1% in Q3 2009. At the third spot stood Brazil and then Russia and Germany, making to the top five nations. In terms of spam production, the US continued to be the top country, with Brazil at second and India standing at the third spot. It was for the first time in 2009 that Germany and Ukraine joined the league of top ten spam producing countries.

The security experts stated that 2009 had experienced both evolution and transformation in terms of computer threats. A large number of Web threats were Internet based, including 2.0 technology-centric attacks and website-based/driven attacks. The report revealed that threats pertaining to portable storage device were at an all-time high and rogue security software exceeded all the limits.

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» SPAMfighter News - 2/16/2010