Cybercriminals Leverage Trust in Social Media to Spread Mal-Bredo A
Virus, According to New Report by Commtouch
Q4 Report Highlights Continuing Evolution of Internet Threats
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Commtouch® (Nasdaq: CTCH) today released its Internet Threats
Trend Report for Q4 2009. Spammers continue to be cutting-edge
marketers, this time taking advantage of the reputations of global
brands, such as UPS, DHL and Facebook to prompt opening of emails.
?Whether
we like it or not, their activities really demonstrate when society-wide
activities ? such as social media participation ? reach critical mass.
Essentially, if a spammer is using a specific brand to entice consumers
to open their mail, it means that brand has achieved a strong, positive
reputation.?
During this past quarter, cybercriminals focused on distributing the
Mal-Bredo A virus. While the number of variants decreased from 10,000 to
1,000 as compared to last quarter, it was spread with much more
virulence.
Commtouch?s quarterly trend report is based on the analysis of over two
billion email messages and Internet transactions seen daily in the
company?s cloud-based global detection centers.
Other highlights from the Q4 Trend Report include:
-
An average of 312,000 zombies were newly activated daily for the
purpose of malicious activity.
-
Spam levels averaged 77% of all email traffic throughout the quarter,
peaking at 98% in November and bottoming out at 68% at the end of
December.
-
Sites in the ?Computers & Technology? and ?Search Engines & Portals?
categories topped the list of Web categories manipulated by phishing
schemes.
-
"Business" continued to be the Web site category most infected with
malware for the third quarter in a row.
-
Pharmacy spam remained in the top spot with 81% of all spam messages;
last quarter, it led with 68%. Replicas remained in the #2 spot,
falling from 19% to 5.4%.
-
Brazil continues to produce the most zombies, responsible for 20.4% of
global zombie activity.
Blended threats, including fake Swine Flu alerts and Halloween tricks,
continued to circulate, while spammers introduced a few new ploys
including MP3 spam and personal enhancement spam targeting women.
?As we review the Internet threats for this quarter, we can really see
the creativity the cybercriminals use to ensure their messages are
opened,? said Asaf Greiner, Commtouch vice president, products. ?Whether
we like it or not, their activities really demonstrate when society-wide
activities ? such as social media participation ? reach critical mass.
Essentially, if a spammer is using a specific brand to entice consumers
to open their mail, it means that brand has achieved a strong, positive
reputation.?
Commtouch Recurrent Pattern Detection? and GlobalView? technologies
identify and block messaging and Web security threats, including
increasingly malicious malware and phishing outbreaks. More details,
including samples and statistics, are available in the Commtouch
Q4 2009 Internet Threats Trend Report, available from Commtouch Labs
at: http://www.commtouch.com/download/1629.
NOTE: Reported global spam levels are based on Internet email traffic as
measured from unfiltered data streams, not including internal corporate
traffic. Therefore global spam levels will differ from the quantities
reaching end user inboxes, due to several possible layers of filtering
at the ISP level.
About Commtouch
Commtouch® (NASDAQ: CTCH) provides proven messaging and Web security
technology to more than 100 security companies and service providers for
integration into their solutions. Commtouch?s patented Recurrent Pattern
Detection? (RPD?) and GlobalView? technologies are founded on a unique
cloud-based approach, and work together in a comprehensive feedback loop
to protect effectively in all languages and formats. Commtouch
technology automatically analyzes billions of Internet transactions in
real-time in its global data centers to identify new threats as they are
initiated, protecting email infrastructures and enabling safe, compliant
browsing. The company?s expertise in building efficient, massive-scale
security services has resulted in mitigating Internet threats for
thousands of organizations and hundreds of millions of users in 190
countries. Commtouch was founded in 1991, is headquartered in Netanya,
Israel, and has a subsidiary in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Stay abreast of the latest messaging and Web threat trends all quarter
long at the Commtouch Café: http://blog.commtouch.com.
For more information about enhancing security offerings with Commtouch
technology, see http://www.commtouch.com
or write info@commtouch.com.
Recurrent Pattern Detection, RPD, Zero-Hour and GlobalView are
trademarks, and Commtouch is a registered trademark, of Commtouch
Software Ltd. U.S. Patent No. 6,330,590 is owned by Commtouch.