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World Cup Based Subject Lines Nine Times Higher in 2010 Than 2006

Internet security firm 'Symantec' released its July 2010 'State of Spam and Phishing' Report. The report discloses that researchers have discovered a huge difference between the 2006 and 2010 World Cup. The number of e-mails containing World Cup keywords in the subject line is almost 9 times higher than in 2006 tournament.

The report states that the top ten subject lines used by hackers are - FIFA World Cup South Africa... bad news, World Cup: Uruguay Beats South Korea 2-1, Germany beats England 4-1 in World Cup, ONGOING FIFA WORLD CUP LOTTERY SOUTH AFRICA 2010, World Cup: Germany Defeats England 4-1, holding positions first, second, third, fourth and fifth respectively.

The report also reveals some other top subject lines used hackers. These are SOUTH AFRICAN WORLD CUP 2010, Oil spill teams keep wary eye on storm in Gulf, World Cup: Argentina Beats Mexico 3-1, Ghana beat US, reach first World Cup quarter-final and World leaders slam North Korea, Iran standing at sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth position respectively.

Moreover, the report informs about the rise in some bogus gaming websites offering fraudulent FIFA offers. Symantec claims in the report that the fame of the FIFA World Cup has urged users to visit gaming websites to play online football.

Besides this, Symantec researchers discovered that it was difficult to curb health-related online pharmacy image spam in June 2010 although they had been continuously blocked by the security vendor. Further, it claims of revival in image spam in June 2010.

Symantec explains in its report that hackers were satisfied sending plaintext-based mails because it was comparatively cheaper too. With the emergence of zombie network model (a network of compromised machines under spammer's control), sending image-based spam proves to be an attractive option.

In addition to the above discoveries, the security company Symantec states that the leading subject line for June 2010 was "Outlook Setup Notification." Some of the other prominent headlines included "Reset your Twitter password" and "Reset your Facebook password".

Related article: World Find New Weapons of Mass Destruction - eWMD

» SPAMfighter News - 7/23/2010

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