Symantec’s October “State of Spam” report notes an increasing number of e-mails containing malware, new popular spam subject lines and that the vast majority of e-mail messages were spam in September.
The report states that spam averaged 86.39 percent of all e-mail messages during September. Of these, 1.3 percent contained malware, which consequently increased the average spam message size.
Compared with August, this proportion of spam e-mail containing malware reflected a ninefold month-over-month increase, according to Symantec. “The number of messages containing malware actually hit a peak of 4.5 percent of all spam at one point during September,” Symantec noted in its report.
Messages that were 0-2k made up 3.43 percent of spam messages in September, compared with 10.24 percent in August. Spam messages that were 2k – 5k accounted for 55.19 percent of all spam in September, down from 59.39 percent in August.
Spam e-mails that were 5k – 10k made up 28.21 percent of all spam messages, up from 22.77 percent in August, while spam messages 10k+ accounted for 13 percent of all spam e-mails in September, up from 8 percent in August.
“Notice of Underreported Income” was the top spam subject line in September, followed by “Delivery Status Notification (Failure),” “failure notice,” “Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender” and “Thank you for setting the order No.475456.”
The first and last of the subject lines listed above are of particular importance, according to Symantec. The first is related to an actual “IRS settlement offering U.S. taxpayers’ holding accounts in foreign banks the opportunity to fully disclose and pay their back taxes, interest and penalties ended September 23rd, 2009,” the company notes in its report. These messages included a URL link telling readers to “download and execute” their IRS statement, which was a “tax-statement.exe” file.
The second type of messages “promised undelivered parcels and cash for collection.”
Holiday-related spam messages saw diversification in September, according to Symantec. For example, Diwali, a festival of lights celebrated in India in October, was taken advantage of, since the holiday attracts Indian populations to go out shopping and searching for holiday deals. The Moon Festival, or Chinese Mid-Autumn festival, was also taken advantage of as spammers capitalized by “sending out mooncakes and gifts promotions to mark the day,” which was Oct. 3.
Spammers also tried to take advantage of the new school year and the weak economy, which has led many to seek advanced education paths to bolster their careers. The top five “degrees” advertised through spam were for becoming a police officer, federal agent, nursing, culinary art professional and teacher.
The U.S. remained the top offender in terms of spam origination as it was responsible for 25 percent of the world’s spam, up from 23 percent in August. Brazil was second with 12 percent, followed by India with 4 percent, South Korea with 4 percent, Poland with 4 percent, Vietnam with 4 percent, China with 3 percent, Colombia with 2 percent, Argentina with 2 percent and Russia with 2 percent.
Forty-three percent of spam messages in September included URLs of the .com nature, while 48 percent contained .cn URLs.
Sources:
http://www.symantec.com/business/theme.jsp?themeid=state_of_spam
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200942/4597/Spam-still-the-majority-of-email-%E2%80%93-malicious-attachments-on-the-rise
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/173447/spam_dominates_email_traffic.html
http://www.securitypronews.com/insiderreports/insider/spn-49-20091012SpamContainingMalwareUpInSeptember.html
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