Spam report: Social networking accounts more effective for spam
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Spammers have learned some creative new techniques for cracking spam filters and spam levels rose to more than 90 percent in May, according to a new report from IT security firm Symantec.
The report cites a rise in spam coming from social networking accounts that seem to have been created using random names and automated CAPTCHA-cracking programs.
These accounts are sending spam emails from major webmail hosting providers such as Google's Gmail, which allows the spam to sneak through spam filters that are set up to detect spoofed email headers.
Spam also follows a daily pattern that appears to be tailored to the time of day when recipients in different locations would be most likely to view it, although spammers are most active during the U.S. working day.
In the U.S., most spam activity occurs between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., when U.S. workers are likely to be logging on to start the day. This makes sense because data show that the most active spammers are based in the U.S., the report said.
The majority (around 58 percent) of spam was sent from known botnets. Donbot is currently the most active botnet, responsible for around 18.2 percent of all spam, followed by Rustock (16.1 percent). Xarvester was responsible for 1.9 percent of spam.
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