Multi-language Spam - A New Trend Among Spammers

According to MessageLabs' July 2009 Intelligence Report, spammers are actively employing translation templates and services for developing spam in different vernaculars.

The report states that in some countries, spam is generated at levels even beyond 95%. In France, Netherlands and Germany, spammers are targeting extensively using automated techniques of spam translation, generating spam at 53%, 25% and 46% respectively. Further, in Japan and China, the rates of non-English spam are 62.3% and 54.7% respectively.

By employing automated translation tools, spammers are designing different language spam and have led to a 13% rise in overall spam across the countries mentioned, starting from May 2009.

The rise, according to the report, is partially because of the efficacy of the mechanism of automated translation templates and services that support spam campaigns in different languages, primarily in countries that use non-English languages.

Paul Wood, Senior Analyst at MessageLabs Intelligence, said spammers are yet again focusing on their Internet tools to design their most recent tricks. Thus, the use of translation tools enables them to create language-specific spam and certain ambiguous translations via employing ineffective online services underscore the fact that spammers are actively employing these antics, as reported by SCMagazine on July 28, 2009.

Wood added that non English spam currently contributed one spam mail for every 20 spam messages, an estimate that would be closely monitored for observing whether spam mailers carried on with their worldwide augmentation.

Other trends featuring in MessageLabs' report relate to Michael Jackson and 4th of July spam scams. Spam using URL shortening services is rising too and because this spam doesn't necessarily depend on weird tales like an insolvent pop musician left his wealth for the public, it might translate into the dangerous strain.

Although new malware creation appears to have leveled off, Symantec reports that less than 1% of malware detected during July 2009 was new, dropping dramatically from June's 58.8%.

Further, new websites hosting 'potentially unwanted programs' and other malware per day rose a record 3,618 over a nine-month period, indicating that malware employed earlier is being increasingly spread to other sites.

Related article: Multi-Constituent Malware Evokes Risk for Businesses

» SPAMfighter News - 8/15/2009