Spam and Phishing Landscape: November 2009

October 2009 saw spam volumes averaging at 87 percent of all email messages, which is consistent with spam volumes observed in August and September 2009, but 10.6% higher than October 2008.

A notable highlight this month is the growth of spam originating from APJ (23% increase of 6% since June 2009) and South America (22% increase of 5% since June 2009) with a corresponding decline in spam originating from EMEA (28% decrease of 6% since June 2009) and North America (20% decrease of 5% since June 2009). This change can be attributed to a number of factors, including spam levels increasing; distribution networks becoming more dynamic as additional broadband connected targets are coming online every day; botnets continuing to jockey for position; and countries such as India, Taiwan, Thailand, and Chile becoming more visible as regions of origin for spam.

With respect to spam categories, Internet spam increased by 7% and now accounts for 39% of all spam messages. This category includes degree spam and this month it is noted that degree spam dominates the top 50 spam subject lines.

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

•    EMEA’s position as the “king of spam” is threatened by some new princes, a.k.a. the APJ and South American regions.
•    Malware as a Percentage of Spam continues to increase
•    Users of Social Networking Websites face Malware and Phishing Attacks
•    October 2009: Spam Subject Line Analysis
•    Instant Degrees Dominate Spam Subject Lines October 2009
•    One Holiday spam campaign makes way for another.

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

•    Symantec observed a 17 percent increase from the previous month in all phishing at-tacks
•    30 percent of phishing URLs were generated using phishing toolkits; an increase of 24 percent from the previous month
•    Symantec observed a 45 percent increase from the previous month in non-English phishing sites
•    More than 97 Web hosting services were used, which accounted for 8 percent of all phishing attacks; a decrease of 19 percent in total Web host URLs when compared to the previous month