Spam and Phishing Landscape: July 2009

In early June , Symantec reported that the FTC had worked with others to shut down the Internet service provider Pricewert LLC. While this was a good example of how security professionals can work together in the fight against cybercrime, spam volumes remained at a very high level throughout June, averaging 90 percent of all email messages. The recent passing of Michael Jackson and the subsequent public interest is yet another example of how spammers are willing to use any notable event as a cover to distribute their messages.

Click here to download the July 2009 State of Spam Report, which highlights the following trends:

• Different Faces of Michael Jackson Spam and Malware

• Fourth of July Holiday Brings Fireworks and More Spam Campaigns

• Image Spam Update

• Mass-Mailing Worm in Fake Twitter Account Invite

In addition, the July 2009 State of Phishing Report has also been made available here, which highlights the following trends:

• Symantec observed a 21 percent increase from the previous month in all phishing attacks.

• A nine percent increase was observed in the total number of phishing URLs generated using phishing toolkits. However, when compared against all phishing attacks the proportion of phishing URLs using toolkits actually reduced to 38 percent from 42 percent. This decrease can be partially attributed to a significant increase in the total number of phishing URLs utilizing free Web-hosting services.

• More than 143 Web hosting services were used, which accounted for 10 percent of all phishing attacks; a staggering increase of 96 percent from the previous month.

• Symantec observed a 21 percent increase in non-English phishing sites.

• Symantec identified a new phishing tactic used in an attack targeting the Australian Taxation Office