Holiday-themed mailings came in a Christmas and New Year surge, according to an IT security firm. The most prevalent service advertised in spam ahead of the New Year was event management for corporate parties. It was also common to see offers to prepare souvenirs with company branding.
Some spam mailings in November were designed to look like holiday e-cards containing both holiday wishes and advertising. The most creative emails appeared to be intricately decorated Christmas cards. The services advertised included the development of a variety of internet and mobile apps, but did not necessarily have any connection to Christmas or New Year. Many holiday-themed mailings in November used image spam, both to get the recipients’ attention, and to bypass spam filters.
Among the biggest sources of spam around the world, the leading countries are still China (32.7 per cent) and the US (23.8 per cent). The share of spam sent from China increased by two percentage points, while the share of spam originating in the US fell by 3.5 points. Asia remains the top regional source of spam (51.9 per cent, or 1.4 percentage points higher than in October), while North America and Western Europe were still among the top three regions.
Attachments in email
The US (16.2 per cent) and Germany (12.6 per cent) remain among the countries that are targeted most by malicious emails.
And phishing
In November, the percentage of phishing emails in total mail traffic halved and settled at 0.015 per cent. Social networking sites were the number one target of phishers, with Facebook bearing the brunt of a monthly increase of 13.2 percentage points. Online stores – number one in October – fell to third place (13.5 percentage points) this month. The share of phishing attacks targeting financial and e-payment organisations decreased by three percentage points in November, but this category remains firmly in second place. Search engines continue to be targeted less frequently (-5.4 percentage points) and fell from being the number three target in October to number four in November. The search engines most frequently targeted by phishers were Google and Yahoo.
Tatyana Shcherbakova, Senior Spam Analyst at Kaspersky Lab said: “As expected, with the approach of the winter holiday season the amount of New Year- and Christmas-themed spam has surged. In December, advertisements for various goods and services related to the holidays will continue to increase, while the amount of image spam will also be on the rise.”
She warned internet users to be careful about opening emails claiming to contain notifications from stores, banks, and other financial systems. “Users are also warned against opening suspicious attachments from unknown senders, clicking on links allegedly leading to banking websites, and especially against entering any personal information such as bank card numbers, passwords, or usernames for payment accounts.”
The full spam report can be found online here: http://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792258/Spam_in_November_2012.
