Spam and Phishing

It may sound strange, but the volume of spam is pretty much a constant; sharp fluctuations are usually linked to a major event – the closure of McColo meant a very noticeable drop in the amount of spam circulating.

If you’ve ever looked at our monthly spam reports, you’ll know that Russian spammers put quite a lot of resources into advertising their services – and the amount of e-advertising spam has increased sharply over the past few months.

You see all sorts of things from all around the world if you’re a spam analyst.

Smack on the bot for the Beeb

The amount of spam in mail traffic averaged 87.2%. A low of 81.4% was recorded on 20 February, while there was a high of 93% on 22 February.

Phishing for dummies

The year 2008 was special for a number of reasons. On the one hand, the first serious steps were taken to combat spam on an international level.

Crime and punishment

The closure of US hosting provider McColo, which hosted the command and control centers of a number of large botnets, resulted in a sharp decline in the amount of spam in November

In October, the average percentage of spam in all mail traffic was 79.9%

We’ve recently seen a phishing run against Lloyds Bank

The amount of spam in mail traffic increased by 1.9% compared to August’s figure and averaged 82.2%

The percentage of spam in all email traffic in August averaged 80.3%. The lowest percentage of 69.8% was recorded on 12 August, while the highest percentage of the month was recorded on 20 August at 90.5%.

In the first quarter of 2008, the share of spam on the Russian internet averaged 85% of all mail traffic

Spam in mail traffic averaged 78.9% in July 2008. A low of 66.2% was recorded on 16 July, while a high of 88.9% occurred on 11 July.