author: programming

Latest Security News | SecurityExtra.com

Spam in May: Russia leapfrogs the USA as world leader for malware

Posted: 08 Jul 2011 02:10 PM PDT

Kaspersky Lab has released its monthly spam report for May 2011, which shows the volume of spam in email traffic increased 2.1 per cent, when compared with the previous month, making up on average 80.8 per cent of the total. A reduction of phishing messages was also noted, while the share of postings containing malware increased. In May, spammers actively used current hot topics in the news to deceive users. In particular, a surge in the number of messages was detected exploiting the news of the death of Osama bin Laden. Such messages contained malicious files as well as links to legitimate payware. News of the death was even used in the emails of the so-called Nigerian scammers. The trick they used to attempt to extract funds generally stayed the same: the scammers request payment of a small sum with the promise of being returned a much bigger sum in the future. It is worthwhile noting that instead of traditional requests for 'help', these new email scams threaten users by saying that their accounts can be frozen due to the suspicion that they are connected with terrorism. In terms of regional change, Russia has become the world leader in terms of [...]