As the gut-wrenching roller coaster that world economies have experienced over the last 90 days continues, it is not surprising that spammers are still attempting to tap into the economic angle to try and deliver their spam messages. Spammers often use the “issue du jour” in their spam campaigns. To borrow a phrase coined by strategists for Bill Clinton in 1992 and apply it to today’s issue: "It's the economy, stupid."
Just like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears, the U.S. Treasury Secretary (Henry Paulson) has joined the list of spammers’ favorite “celebrities.” In October 2008, Symantec observed a spam attack that contained a message claiming to come from the U.S. Treasury Secretary. The message suggested that Paulson had been instructed by the United Nations to "wire a sum of $1m into your Bank Account in a Legal way." [sic] In addition to this attack, Symantec also discovered that the FDIC was being used in a malware-related attack in October.
Although the U.S. presidential election may be winding down, it is clear that spam campaigns are not going to follow suit. Spam levels clocked in at an average 76.4 percent of all messages in October 2008. This spam level represents a year-on-year increase of nearly six percent since October 2007, but a decrease since the 80 percent level in August this year. Image spam has also reemerged. While image spam has not reached the dizzying heights of 2007, in October 2008 image spam averaged nine percent of all spam, which represents an increase of seven percent since September 2008.
To read about these or other trends in the Symantec Monthly State of Spam Report, such as lottery scam messages targeting the London Olympics and South African World Cup, please visit the State of Spam website.