MessageLabs, the leading provider
of integrated messaging and web security services to businesses worldwide,
today announced the results of its MessageLabs Intelligence Report for
September and 3rd quarter of 2007. The new data reveals that virus and
phishing levels have significantly increased, reaching levels not seen
since early 2006. In addition, MessageLabs exposes a second wave of highly
targeted C-level and senior management email attacks with increased
sophistication and outreach.
With a virus threat now incorporated within every 48 emails,
cyber-criminals are steering away from using the more obvious attachment
method of distribution and favoring the use of links to malicious websites
hosting malware code. This technique, which increased in popularity by
approximately 15 percent this quarter, enables social engineering-based
attacks such as e-postcards to be utilized.
Mirroring the recent resurgence in virus attacks, the volume of phishing
threats has also reached exponential levels this month with every 87 emails
comprising of a phishing attack. Through the increased availability of
phishing kits and the uptake of aggressive phishing techniques such as
‘rock’ phishing, the quantity and severity of these attacks are able to
increase dramatically. ‘Rock’ phishing utilizes a phishing kit, which
enables a single compromised computer within a botnet to host multiple
phishing sites at the same time.
“The start of the new school year seemed to bring back an increase in
old-school threats and in high volumes. With email more ubiquitous than the
telephone and one in 48 emails containing a virus, most people are
unwittingly receiving more than one virus a day,” said Mark Sunner, Chief
Security Analyst, MessageLabs. “As we enter the last quarter of 2007 and
draw closer to the holiday season, the bad guys will be provided
opportunity to disguise their attacks through the increase in genuine
well-wishing emails and the anticipated upsurge in online shopping traffic.
In addition, with the incessant rise of comprised machines through
aggressive botnet activity, further spam level increases are anticipated.”
September is not just the month of mass-outreach attacks — the highly
targeted approach is still rife. On September 12, more than 1,100 C-level
and senior management executives became the target of another attack,
thought to be from the same perpetrators of the June 26 C-level assault.
With increased sophistication, the emails, which purport to be from a
recruitment company, use a Microsoft error message to persuade the victims
to click on the RFT attachment. Once opened, the RFT file contains an
executable, which drops two files onto the computer which in turn will be
used to pass sensitive information back to the attacker.
Other report highlights:
Web Security: Analysis shows that 73.8 percent of the malware intercepted
in September was new. Analysis of policy-based traffic highlighted that
corporate tolerance of social networking sites is diminishing with Facebook
being the most blocked site within the Personal’s and Dating category for
SMBs and Friends Reunited top of the same category for the Enterprise.
Spam: In September, the global ratio of spam in email traffic from new and
unknown bad sources, for which the recipient addresses were deemed valid,
was 73.5 percent, a decrease of 0.5 percent on the previous month. When
reviewing the overall spam rates on a quarterly basis, a drop of 0.9
percent was observed since Q2 2007.
Viruses: This month, the global ratio of viruses in email traffic from new
and previously unknown bad sources destined for valid recipients was 1 in
48.8 emails (2.05 percent), an increase of 0.8 percent since last month.
Virus and trojan levels have declined steadily since 2006, with the Q3 2007
rates of 1 in 67.2 emails being the highest quarterly level since Q2 2006.
Phishing: With an increase of 0.6 percent, one in 87.2 emails is comprised
of some form of phishing attack in September, the highest level to date.
When judged as a proportion of all email-borne threats such as viruses and
trojans, the number of phishing emails has risen by 9.7 percent to 56.0
percent of the malware threats intercepted in September. Over the last
quarter, phishing rates have increased from 1 in 232.0 to 1 in 124.3.
Geographical Trends:
-- Israel continued to have the highest spam rate this month with 73.8
percent. Hong Kong was the second most highly spammed country registering a
6.6 percent increase in spam since August.
-- Japan had the lowest spam rate with 27.1 percent. Germany also saw a
sharp decrease of 10.2 percent in spam rates in the last month, marking a
quarterly decline of 6.63 percent
-- India still remains the region most affected by viruses with 1 in 53
emails containing a virus. The largest rise in virus activity was observed
in the Netherlands where levels rose by 0.2 percent, from 1 in 750.1 emails
in August to 1 in 303.3 emails in September.
Information provided by: Findarticles.com
