PHL among top 20 Spam sources in 2012 –Kaspersky

The Philippines has made it to another Top 20 list but it may not be something to be proud of.

 

Security vendor Kaspersky Labs said the Philippines was among the top 20 countries that are sources of spam in 2012, accounting for 1.1 percent of all unsolicited email worldwide.

 

"It (the Philippines) is ranked among the last 10 countries contributing less than two percent of the overall spam," it said.

 

Last June, Kaspersky already tagged the Philippines as a top source of spam that hit the United States and Europe in 2012.

 

Kaspersky also said that while spam declined in 2012, last year also saw a rise in the use of data-stealing malware.

 

It said the decline in spam last year was due to a rise in anti-spam protection among Internet users worldwide.

 

"As of the end of the year, the percentage of spam ended at 72.1 percent - 8.2 percent less than in 2011," Kaspersky Lab said in its spam report for 2012.

 

Darya Gudkova, Kaspersky Lab Head of Content Analysis and Research, noted the percentage of spam even went down to below 70 percent in the final three months of 2012.

 

"However, that doesn’t mean spam is headed the way of the dodo anytime soon: malicious spam, fraud, and advertising of illegal goods cannot simply or easily migrate to legal platforms, due to their own inherently criminal nature. We expect that the decline in spam volumes in 2013 will be negligible at best," Gudkova said.

 

Kaspersky noted a comparably huge decline in spam volumes than in 2010, whose percentage was at a whopping 82.2 percent. The percentage went down to 80.3 percent in 2011.

 

It said this could be due to the shutdown of several botnet command centers and pharmaceutical affiliate programs in 2012.

 

Also, it said another reason for the spam decline could be the use of mandatory DKIM (domain key identified mail) signature policies by email providers.

 

Source countries

 

Kaspersky also noted major changes in terms of the source country of spam.

 

China now tops the list, accounting for 19.5 percent of all unsolicited email - an unprecedented development as China was not even in the top 20 spam sources in 2011.

 

"The entry of China in the top list already increases Asia’s ranking as the primary regional source of spam, rising 11.2 percentage points for 2012, finally contributing 50 percent of all spam. North America took second place with 15.8 percent last year," Kaspersky said.

 

The amount of spam originating in Latin America fell by 8 percentage points and closed at 11.8 percent. Europe also dropped in 2012, with spam from Western and Eastern Europe combined amounting to 15.1 percent.

 

Also, Kaspersky said that despite the decrease in overall percentage of spam in mail traffic, the proportion of emails with malicious attachments fell only slightly to 3.4 percent.

 

It said this is still a significantly huge percentage since it only reflects emails with malicious attachments and not spam messages containing links to malicious websites.

 

"In 2012, Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen was the most common malicious attachment. The fourth quarter saw a change and the most prevalent malicious attachments were Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.fsfe and Trojan-PSW.Win32.Tepfer.cfwf," it said.

 

Kaspersky said these three malware were designed to steal user account information such as usernames and passwords.

 

Fraud.gen and Zbot specifically targeted passwords from financial and payment systems, while Tepfer stole other types of passwords.

 

Also, the volume of spam from the US and China grew substantially in 2012 and even if anti-spam laws were passed and botnets were shut down, spammers were still taking advantage of powerful computing resources in both countries.

 

These computing resources were then used to build new botnets in those countries, Kaspersky said.

 

Kaspersky Lab also reiterated in its report that the volume of malicious emails remained high throughout the year.

 

"Malicious users are copying even broader range of legitimate notifications. 2012 also saw the spread of malicious programs that steal usernames and logins, focusing primarily on account information for financial services. Nevertheless, creators of these malicious programs also want passwords from social networks, email accounts, and other services," it said.

 

Kaspersky reminded Internet users to keep safe by making sure the email they get "was actually sent from the resource that it claims to be."

 

"Never click on links in suspicious emails, and remember, it is critically important to update your software regularly," it advised. — TJD, GMA News