Spam and Phishing Landscape: September 2009

Overall spam volumes averaged at 87 percent of all email messages in August 2009, which is a decrease of 2 percent since July 2009. Health spam, which decreased by 17 percent in July, also decreased again in August and averaged at 6.73 percent. It is interesting to note that over 29 percent of spam is now Internet-related spam. Internet-related spam attacks are those that specifically offer or advertise Internet- or computer-related goods and services. Examples include attacks promoting Web hosting, Web design, and spamware-related products and services.
 
Holiday spam campaigns have also begun taking advantage of Halloween and Christmas. This follows closely after Labor Day-related spam in a nod to what some economists predict will be a very difficult holiday season for legitimate retailers.
 
Click here to download the September 2009 State of Spam Report, which highlights the following trends:
 
•       Holiday Spam Campaigns Begin in Earnest
•       Spoofing Around the URLs
•       Image Spam Gaining Weight
•       August 2009: Spam Subject Line Analysis
•       Checklist: Protecting your business, your employees, and your customers
 
In addition, the September 2009 State of Phishing Report has also been made available here, which highlights the following trends:
 
•        Symantec observed a 45 percent decrease from the previous month in all phishing attacks
•        Thirty percent of phishing URLs were generated using phishing toolkits, which is a decrease of 74 percent from the previous month
•        There was an 11 percent increase from the previous month in non-English phishing sites
•        More than 111 Web hosting services were used, which accounted for 11 percent of all phishing attacks—a decrease of 4 percent of total Web host URLs when compared to the previous month
•        Symantec identified an increase in a phishing tactic used in an attack targeting a popular email client application