Symantec State of Spam and Phishing Report - October 2010

Here is the October State of Spam and Phishing Report. This report reviews malicious activity throughout the month of September 2010.

A close observation of spam and phishing tactics this month revealed some interesting highlights:

* Fool’s gold - Gold’s upward trajectory in price has seen a similar rise in gold spam. Symantec’s research shows that, during the last week of September, the number of spam messages related to gold nearly doubled from the volume tracked during the last week of August.

* Phishing grew overall by 52 percent in the month of September, with phishing on social media sites comprising two percent of all phishing.

* Spam levels dropped from a high of 92.51 percent in August, spam made up 89.40 percent of all messages in September - the lowest volumes since the McColo shutdown in 2008.

* LinkedIn Spoof: In late September, messages spoofing LinkedIn tried to trick users into installing malware. When users click on the link, Zeus malware trieds to install itself on the user’s computer. After it had been successfully installed, the malware was able to gather sensitive information about the user.

If you would like more information on the October State of Spam Report, please contact the representative below.

Media Contact:

Bas Bolyn

Max Australia

+61 2 9954 3492

bas.bolyn@maxaustralia.com.au