Spam, Botnets &Phishing Still Rising

As per Message Labs and Commtouch Software Ltd., the number of spam attacks, specifically those generated by zombie and image spam grew significantly in the 3rd quarter of 2006. Every day, around 3.5 Million attacks were launched by sending spam. Image spam grew in severity and number during the period, accounting for about 50% of all spam during the time of its peak circulation. The corresponding figure in the 2nd quarter was 30%.

Image-spammers came out with new complex wares equipped with animated images circulated on a large scale for the 1st time. On an average, the spam based on image comprises of 20% of all spams. As it is 5 to 8 times larger than the text spam, the total bandwidth use and excessive storage required by the spam has become more than double since the starting of the year.
Amir Lev, CTO, Commotouch, said that most of the IT organizations have to bear the requirements of storage and bandwidth of this resource-exhaustive spam.

A hike in "geek spam" has been observed. These spam consist of keywords that are related to technology within the electronic mails to dodge the recipients and make them to believe that the spam is authentic. By using keywords, the Bayesian filters can be polluted that are often used by technology professionals.
During the quarter, botnets or zombie networks grew in severity and size.

Throughout the period, every day, thousands of new zombies were identified by Commotouch research. As per the research, on an average, 85% of the spams sent during the period were sent through those computers that were zombie.
Phishing is also growing with a rapid pace. According to the research, during the 3rd quarter, around half of the total phishing attempts were targeted on eBay or PayPal account holders, with both sharing 24% of spam.

As new types of spam are being added to current phishing attacks and an increased focus is on banks that have not taken the new security technology yet, the end user is becoming more exposed to complicated and 'engineered' attacks.

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» SPAMfighter News - 11/1/2006