The USA re-entered the Top 20 sources of spam for the first time in two months, according to Kaspersky Lab’s January report on global spam activity
The USA re-entered the Top 20 sources of spam for the first time in two months, according to Kaspersky Lab’s January report on global spam activity.
The USA’s re-entry at 14th place in January reflects attempts by cybercriminals to rebuild their networks after numerous spammer botnets and partner programs were shut down by the authorities and antivirus firms at the end of 2010. However, the USA is still attractive for botmasters because it is highly computerised. “Unfortunately, spammers have been quite successful at restoring their botnets and if no new incidents affect the world of spam in the near future, the volume of unsolicited messages in mail traffic could reach summer 2010 levels by spring,” comments Maria Namestnikova, Senior Spam Analyst at Kaspersky Lab.
India, Russia and Italy maintained their leading positions among the most popular sources of spam with their contribution to the world’s spam traffic remaining almost unchanged from December. The amount of spam emanating from India stood at 9 percent. Russia came second having distributed 8.2 percent of spam with 5 percent originating in Italy.
According to the report, pharmaceutical spam was the most popular spam category in January. It has reclaimed its former leadership status after its dramatic decline following the robust anti-spam campaign of last year. The spammers clearly do not want to give up such a profitable side of their business. In second place was the Personal Finance category dominated by sites offering cheap loans and help finding work via recruitment agencies. The Fake Designer Goods category, which topped the rating in December, in line with the online Christmas shopping surge dropped to third place in January.
The full version of the spam report for January 2011 is available at: www.securelist.com
