MessageLabs publishes June 2009 Intelligence Report

By SearchSecurityAsia editors | Jun 30, 2009

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SINGAPORE – MessageLabs, now part of Symantec Corp., announced the June 2009 publication of MessageLabs Intelligence Report which highlights constant spam levels since May at 90.4% largely due to the several hours of downtime experienced by Cutwail, one of the largest and most active botnets, following the shutdown of California-based ISP, Pricewert LLC on June 5, 2009. Additionally, MessageLabs Intelligence identified 1 in 78 IM-based hyperlinks point to malicious websites.

“Cutwail’s recovery to one-third of its original levels, after only a few hours, highlights the progress spammers have made since the McColo shutdown in November,” said Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst, Symantec. “Spammers have learned the importance of having a backup for command and control channels.”

83.2% of all spam in June was from botnets while the remainder comes from compromised mail servers and webmail accounts. The image spam MessageLabs Intelligence reported on in May became more sustained in June, accounting for 8-10% of all spam. The newest iterations originate from botnets, contain background noise patterns and are delivered as an email attachment rather than hosted remotely.

The report found that 1 in 405 instant messages contained a hyperlink of which 1 in 78 were linked to malicious websites resulting to a 78% increase over the past six months.

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