eleven Email Security Report Finds Decrease in US Spam

By Nicole Henderson,June 16, 2011
Graphs show results from the monthly report

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- In the last week of May daily spam volume grew over 150 percent, according to a report released by email security firm eleven on Wednesday.

This report comes a week after eleven released a new study that finds IT resellers see a growing trend in the field of managed email security.

The May 2011 email security report found that a strong wave of casino spam was cause for the increase though the report says that it is unclear if it "was just a brief flare-up or whether it signifies the beginning of a new period of spam growth."

Casino mailings accounted for 17.5 percent of all spam emails, according to the report.

Pharmaceutical spam accounted for the highest percentage of spam, while counterfeit watches came in second place, followed by casino spam.

The report says that spammers made more effort to increase the opening rate of spam emails in April and May, most often exploiting the popularity of YouTube to get clicks on links. eleven says the emails had subject lines like "YouTube service sent you a message: TOP ten best unrated videos to watch." The links in the email led the recipient to the Web page of the spammer group Canadian Pharmacy.

eleven says that April and May saw a greater mixing of spam and malware and that spam with illegal content was another focus of spammers, including spam offering jobs for money laundering activities.

The top ten countries of origin for spam included India, Russia, Brazil, Korea, Ukraine, Indonesia, Vietnam, Romania, UK and Poland. India took the top spot with 10.4 percent of spam. While the US is usually in the top ten and has been for years, May marks the first month in some time when it hasn't been one of the leading countries for spam.

 
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Spam Accounts for 79 Percent of Email Traffic MessageLabs Report

By Nicole Henderson, January 25, 2011  

A graph from MessageLabs shows spam trends by month

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Security firm Symantec (http://www.symantec.com/) has released its January 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Report that reveals spam is responsible for 78.6 percent of all email traffic. According to the report released Tuesday, the volume of spam in circulation in January 2011 was 65.9 percent lower than that same period a year ago, when the spam rate was 83.9 percent of all email traffic.

Symantec finds that the recent decline of spam is the result of both a halt in the spam activities of three botnets -- Rustock, Lethic and Xarvester -- and "unrest among pharmaceutical spam-sending gangs".
"The closure of spam affiliate, Spamit, was partially responsible for the disruption to spam output," said MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Paul Wood, Symantec.cloud. "However, there are likely other factors at work, such as consolidation and restructuring of pharmaceutical spam operations which has led to instability in the market likely to be exploited as a business opportunity by other spam gangs. We expect to see more pharmaceutical spam in 2011 as new pharmaceutical spam brands emerge and botnets compete for their business."
According to the press release, pharmaceutical spam experienced peak levels in May 2010 when up to 85 percent of spam was related to pharmaceutical products. In January 2011, pharmaceutical spam accounted for 59.1 percent of all spam. The report finds that this decline is the result of Spamit shutting down in October 2010.
In 2010, spam-sending botnets were responsible for 88 percent of global spam, falling to 77 percent by the end of the year. Rustock is the single, largest spam-sending botnet according to the report, previously being accountable for 47.5 percent of all spam or 44.1 billion spam emails a day.
"At various points during Rustock's history, the botnet has often exhibited irregular spamming patterns by sending huge volumes of spam before going quiet for several weeks at a time," Wood said. "But throughout 2010, its spamming pattern was more regular and it had been active non-stop until December 2010. Our investigation revealed no evidence of Rustock being disrupted in any way either by law enforcement or through other action."

The full report delves into trends in viruses, endpoint threats, phishing, Web security as well as geographical trends and vertical trends. 

Canada approved an anti-spam law at the beginning of January. Though it received royal assent on December 15, Bill C-28, or the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, will not be enforced until approximately eight months from now. Violators of the law could face fines of up to $10 million.

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Two Men Arrested in iPad Email Security Breach

By Justin Lee, January 24, 2011 A screen capture of the iPad, taken from the Apple website

Related Topics: security hackers apple at&t legal

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- A San Francisco man was arrested and charged last week in Newark, New Jersey for allegedly stealing the email addresses of 120,000 Apple iPad users, according to a report by SF Appeal.

Daniel Spitler, a 26-year old store detective at a San Francisco-based Borders bookstore, surrendered to FBI agents in Newark on Tuesday morning.
After making an initial appearance before a federal court in Newark, Spitler was released on $50,000 bail under the condition that he does not have access to computers during his bail sentence with the exception of fulfilling his job duties, said US attorney spokeswoman Rebekah Carmichael.
Spitler and 25-year-old Andrew Auernheimer of Fayetteville, Arkansas were both charged January 13 in a federal criminal complaint.
They were both charged with one count of conspiring to gain unauthorized access to computers and one count of fraudulently obtaining personal information, with each count carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison if they are convicted.

The two defendants are accused of exploiting a former vulnerability in AT&T Communications security to hack into the company's servers and steal the emails of 114,067 people in June 2010.

In what was considered the worst security breach in Apple history, the hack compromised the email addresses of thousand of early iPad 3G subscribers, including politicians, celebrities, corporate executives and military personnel.
According to the complaint, the defendants allegedly used a script they called "Account Slurper" to attain the email addresses.
AT&T said it informed all iPad 3G customers of the flaw at the time and fixed the flaw shortly after.
US attorney Paul Fishman of New Jersey said last week there is no proof the two men used the emails for criminal actions, according to Carmichael, but recognized the severity of the charges.
Meanwhile, Auernheimer was arrested Tuesday morning in Fayetteville, where a US judge ordered that he be held in custody until a detention hearing on Friday, Carmichael said.
Written by FBI Agent Christian Schole, the complaint stated that Spitler and Auernheimer were members of a lose collective of hackers called Goatse Security.
The complaint cites excerpts of alleged online chats between the two men, where they appeared to consider selling the list of emails to spammers, exposing the vulnerability to the public, and making a profit on a potential decline in AT&T stock prices.
The complaint also alleges that Spitler and Auernheimer talked about getting rid of the stolen email addresses after Gawker first reported on the flaw.
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