Our partner in the fight against internet threats, Commtouch, has just released their latest in-depth report that covers Web threats, phishing, malware, and spam. Q2 2011 has witnessed a vast downgrade in spam levels due to a shift from botnet flavored spam activity to low-level compromised accounts. Both law enforcement and IP-based blocking techniques have proven highly effective this quarter, with spammers actively trying to avoid these traps. They are employing a combination of malware and phishing to compromise legitimate accounts and then use these accounts to send low-volume spam outbreaks.
Facebook is once again a key battleground as more people are socially integrated on-line, making them a far easier target. Amongst the preferred techniques is malware that tricks users by promising applications that reveal who was viewing their profiles as well as Osama Bin Laden death videos.
Q2 2011 also witnessed:
- Phony IRS “rejected payment” emails.
- Fake iPhone 5 notifications.
- SEO poisoning.
- Malicious scripts within Adobe PDF files
The highlights:
- Spam levels averaged 113 billion spam/phishing messages per day during Q2, the lowest in three years.
- Approximately 377,000 zombies were activated daily during Q2, a significant increase compared to the 258,000 zombies in Q1.
- The most popular spam topic in Q2 was pharmacy ads, although these now represent only 24% of all spam, down from 28% in Q1.
- India keeps its title as the country with the most zombies – 17% of all zombies worldwide.
- Websites featuring pornography and sexually explicit material were the most likely to contain malware.
To get the full picture on the war against internet threats download the report and take a look at Syneto’s Security Center.
Syneto offers the perfect weapon to fight the ever expanding range of internet threats, Total Email Protection, so be sure to take a look.
