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Symantec Describes February Spam Scenario

Symantec, a security firm released its "March 2010 State of Spam & phishing Report", according to which, ongoing events along with an increase in phishing assaults constituted some of the major global spam problems during February 2010. The firm noticed that phishing assaults increased 16% from January 2010.

This was mainly because of a voluminous rise in the number of distinct IP and URL attacks. phishing toolkits helped to generate 13% of all phishing websites, a rise of 9% since January 2010.

Thereafter, Symantec reports that it observed a 12% increase in non-English phishing websites from January 2010. phishing websites in French and Italian languages were found to increase considerably. The reason for Italian phishing sites to shoot up was the increase in assaults against 3 Italian banks. Similarly, phishing against a certain French bank and a Canadian financial institution resulted in the growth of French assaults.

The security firm also spotted a phishing assault against the Indian Income Tax Department. Currently, the country is amidst the tax returns season and phishers are riding on the opportunity to distribute phishing e-mails. The e-mails claim that there is a tax re-imbursement waiting for the recipient. Unfortunately, most people don't know about these attacks.

Symantec further added that malware authors put much effort to spread malicious programs during February 2010. Accordingly, they promised Internet surfers of websites that would apparently feature news and videos regarding the recent Chile and Haiti earthquakes, or the recall of the Toyota automobile.

Additionally, the firm reports that the U.S. was the most preferred country to host attacks and dispatch spam. During February 2010, 48% of the total phishing URLs were hosted in the U.S. and 23% of the total junk e-mails originated from its systems. U.K systems were the generators of 3% of the total spam, accounting for a 1% rise since January 2010. The country was also the eighth highest nation in generating spam.

Other countries constituting the most spam generating nations were Brazil -6%, Netherlands and India -5% each, Germany -4%, Poland, Romania and South Korea -3% each and France -2%, as concluded by the security firm.

Related article: Sentence for American Contractor for Sabotaging Government Navy Computers

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