Spammers target social networking sites to spread spam, says Symantec

Symantec has published its monthly State of Spam and State of Phishing reports.

Spammers habitually exploit the reputations of brands for their benefit. As more and more people become connected through social networking sites, it is no surprise that the trust and reputation earned by these websites is misused by spammers. In the last month, spam attacks have leveraged the burgeoning social networking brand Twitter for two spam campaigns: “Make Money Fast” (MMF) and dating spam.

In May, spam levels rose dramatically and The McColo shutdown is all but a distant memory with spam levels at approximately 90 percent of all email – consistent with the levels observed one year ago. Old botnets have been brought back online, and new botnets have been created. While the EMEA region continues to be the leading host of zombie computers, Brazil at 16 percent continues to own the dubious honor of the number one host of active zombie machines.

The State of Spam Report also includes the following and can be downloaded here:

• Spam Highlights: May 2009
• Spammers Appeal To Revive Auto Companies
• Spam Diploma Mills Continue To Turn Out More “Offers”
• Fight Diabetes, But Not With Spammer’s Help
• Zombie Host IP Activity May 2009.

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

• Symantec observed that 42% of phishing URLs were generated using phishing toolkits; an increase of 100% from the previous month
• There was a 14% decrease from the previous month in non-English phishing sites
• More than 98 Web hosting services were used, which accounted for 6 percent of all phishing attacks; a decrease of 5 percent from the previous month
• Symantec observed a new trend of phishing attack towards the popular social-networking site Facebook

For more information or to speak to Symantec please contact us on Symantec@bitepr.com or call 0208 834 3504.