Spam is down, except for the unscrupulous
Posted by: Timothy Weaver on 01/24/2014 11:33 AM
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Spam email was down in volume last year, according to Kaspersky Labs. However, junk mail messages still comprise two in three items of electronic communication sent over the web. The biggest sources of spam were China (23 per cent) and the US (18 per cent).
Emails with malicious attachments was 3.2 per cent, only slightly lower than that in 2012. Kaspersky adds that almost a third of phishing attacks were targeted at social networks. One of the main tricks of the messages is to seem to be emails from legit anti-virus companies with attachments contaminated with banking Trojans such as ZeuS.
"For the third year in a row the most prevalent malware spread by email were programs that attempted to steal confidential data, usually logins and passwords for internet banking systems. At the same time, however, phishing attacks are shifting from bank accounts to social networking and email', said Darya Gudkova, head of content analysis at Kaspersky Lab.
She added: "This can be partly explained by the fact that today’s email accounts often give access to a lot of content, including email, social networking, instant messaging, cloud storages and sometimes even a credit card."
Spam and malicious email trends in 2013 can be found on Kasperkys Securelist blog here.
Emails with malicious attachments was 3.2 per cent, only slightly lower than that in 2012. Kaspersky adds that almost a third of phishing attacks were targeted at social networks. One of the main tricks of the messages is to seem to be emails from legit anti-virus companies with attachments contaminated with banking Trojans such as ZeuS.
"For the third year in a row the most prevalent malware spread by email were programs that attempted to steal confidential data, usually logins and passwords for internet banking systems. At the same time, however, phishing attacks are shifting from bank accounts to social networking and email', said Darya Gudkova, head of content analysis at Kaspersky Lab.
She added: "This can be partly explained by the fact that today’s email accounts often give access to a lot of content, including email, social networking, instant messaging, cloud storages and sometimes even a credit card."
Spam and malicious email trends in 2013 can be found on Kasperkys Securelist blog here.
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