A chart from MessageLabs illustrating a big decline in the volume of spam emails
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — According to reports posted last week on the MessageLabs Intelligence blog, operated by the Symantec (www.symantec.com) unit, the organization’s scanning has seen a rise in malicious attachments accompanying spam email
The post on the MessageLabs blog says that while spam email traffic in general fell dramatically, as expected, following the shutdown of the massive Rustock botnet in March, the company’s spam traps saw a big increase in the volume of spam data hitting its spam traps, in spite of the declining number of emails.
The reason turned out to be an increase in the number of emails with .zip file attachments being sent out by the Cutwail botnet, meaning a big increase in the average size of each email, in terms of data. That volume of spam data has been fairly well sustained since March 26, which suggests a bit of a shift in spamming tactics.
According to the post, the emails are all variations of a general subject – that the recipient missed the delivery of a package, and must open the attachment and print it out to bring to the delivery company’s facility.
Inside the zip file is an executable file that will infect machines with variants of the Bredolab malware, which would enable the attacker to control the victim’s machine – most likely making it part of the botnet and using it to distribute further attacks.
In another recent post, MessageLabs indicated that PDF format files are also becoming popular resources in document-based attacks.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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