Data Shows Spammers Not Give up Easily

The report revealed that e-mail accounts of innocent web users are hacked by criminals who send "419-type" mails to the contacts in the address book of the hacked accounts. Further, it brings into limelight the recent kinds of spam e-mails which include various topics and coming from different regions of the world.

The e-mail said that the recipient has won a lottery prize that was aimed to promote some sporting event and carries links. These links provide guidelines on how to claim the prize money and also ask for private data. Interestingly, Symantec also predicted in its report some more fraudulent messages and mails to rise in the lead up to the Games.

The report also informed that the hackers are making mail harvesting method easy. Also, they have launched their targets on Japanese mobile market and tantalizing users by fake news and spam about Japanese adult dating. Further, the earthquake in China is used by spammers to circulate viruses.

The report also revealed some of the leading firms that have infected systems (zombies) like Verizon, Telecom Italia and Brazil Telecom. The range of spam shows an average of 77%, but varies between 64% and 94% of the total mails. Also, the pharmaceutical spam is the most famous of all carrying 40% of total spam.

Shockingly, the report also informed that the phishing scams take advantage of both users of Google adwords and higher education community. Further, on an average almost 10 Million zombie IP addresses become active everyday.

Also, Symantec claimed that colleagues, friends and acquaintances got the request for assistance and were compelled to reply through mail. As the hacker acquires the account of the user, the real owner would not have any knowledge about the mail, if the users got trapped in the scam, as reported by itbusiness.ca

The Regional Director of Symantec, Patrick Evans said that spam has tremendously multiplied as a percentile of mails sent. In the midst of 2007, it was around 65% of total mail reaching to 65% of mail in the later half of 2007 before increasing to 80% around Christmas. In January, it halted for a short time before touching the median of 80%, as reported by ITWeb on July 4, 2008.

Related article: Data Theft Incidents Influence Consumers Adversely

» SPAMfighter News - 7/23/2008