Infected spam getting worse says Google
Monday, August 18, 2008
July has been the busiest month in terms of email virus attacks so far this year, according to Google.
In a post in its official enterprise blog, the search engine giant notes that the numbers peaked at nearly ten million spam messages on July 24th.
The firm notes that one of the more prominent attacks during the 31-day period involved a faked UPS tracking link that was intended to lure recipients into clicking it; an act that would result in the downloading of malware.
It notes that viruses tend to increase during the summer months, adding that a number of new forms of such malware have been identified so far in August.
"On August 5th, we saw a large inflow of messages with an encrypted .RAR attachment. The overall 2008 trend has been a decrease in the use of attachments, so this new virus is confirmation that spam doesn't follow trends for long," Google states.
Meanwhile, Security Watch notes that news alerts spam emails are continuing to develop, with CNN recently being the target of a latest wave.
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