According to an IT security firm, spam was down in February compared with the previous month.
During February spammers continued with their January mass-mailings devoted to Valentine’s Day. The number of unsolicited valentines peaked on February 12 accounting for 0.2 per cent of all spam messages. In English-language spam, messages emerged offering Easter presents and holiday gifts. Kaspersky Lab observed an English-language mass-mailing that exploited the date of March 8, or International Women’s Day, which is not a popular holiday in English-speaking countries. Even more curiously, female recipients were being offered “male-only” pills as a gift.
Decreased spam
Over the period in question, 2.8 per cent of all email contained malicious files, which is 1.5 per cent lower than last month. For the second month in a row, the United States topped the list of countries with the most mail antivirus detections, although the number for the US declined slightly last month compared to January. Russia has now dropped out of the top 10 countries with the most Kaspersky mail antivirus detections, with Brazil taking its place. India has moved from fourth to sixth place after losing 1.5 per cent and being overtaken by Germany.
“The decreasing share of spam containing malicious attachments is most probably a passing phenomenon,” comments Maria Namestnikova, senior spam analyst at Kaspersky Lab. “It is very unlikely that spammers will give up participation in malware distribution partnership programmes, especially at a time when the level of contract spam in the Internet domains of the developing countries is decreasing because of the economic crisis.”
The ranking of spam ‘states of origin’ has seen virtually no change. India maintains its position as the leader, with Indonesia and Brazil next on the list. All in all, the 12 positions have been taken by the same players as in January, although some have swapped places.
The number of anti-phishing detections was up 3.5 per cent on sites aimed at stealing the credentials of social network users. Facebook users were the most popular target for phishers in February. At the same time, online stores and auctions saw a 3 per cent drop in the number of detections. Amazon, the popular online store, has fallen lower in the list of targets after becoming a leader in January.
The complete version of the February 2012 spam report is available at www.securelist.com.
