Spam Volume Marginally Rose During May 2010

Symantec, an Internet security company, has recently released "State of Spam & Phishing" Report, which states that spam accounted for 89.81% of all messages in May 2010 against 89.22% in April 2010. The report also highlights that uncreative blank subject line captured the top position on the spam list during May 2010, while the third place was captured by less-than-original 'Please Read' spam.

The monthly review also gives an insight into the mid-year trends. The security company has identified that a number of spam and phishing trends continued for the first six months of 2010. The most important among the trends is the proliferation of spam techniques targeted at social networking websites.

As the social networking websites add millions of users to their subscriber base, spammers exploit the rising popularity of these networks to craft new spamming methods. There are a number of social networking scams recorded in 2010; for instance - scams disguised as privacy protection information, fake invitations to join a network, capitalizing on recent news, bogus photo tagging/comments, fake surveys and rogue applications.

Some other features of May 2010 report are surge in .ru spam and the emergence of EMEA as the contributor of half of the global spam. According to Symantec data, there was an increase of 12% in spam emanating from .ru URLs to the total of 34.1% as the domain held the second place after .com at 49% in May 2010. The report also discloses that there was a decline of 3% in spam originating from the US in May 2010. However, the country continued to lead other countries with a healthy sum over and a margin of three-to-one against the second place.

Moreover, the EMEA region has contributed the maximum number of spam till now in 2010. The region's global share increased around 3% during May against nearly 3% downfall in spam generation from North America during the same period. The EMEA region has recorded a substantial rise in the volume of spam till now in 2010, with the highest increase recorded in May 2010. According to Symantec, the EMEA region constituted 48.1% of the total spam.

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» SPAMfighter News - 6/22/2010