In the second quarter of 2016, the average level of spam email was 57,3% of all email post officey, according to Kaspersky Lab's quarterly report on the spam and phishing landscape. This is an increase of four percentage points compared to the second quarter of 2015 and one percentage point compared to the immediately preceding quarter.
During the previous quarter, political issues were among the most interesting issues for spammers. The upcoming US elections and presidential candidates have given crooks a good opportunity to target users. Among the "hot" themes of the quarter were the Olympic Games in Brazil, with spammers and phishers making money from the fans.
Donald Trump has been one of the main topics for the majority of spam messages related to politics. In these emails, srammers described the target recipients the unique methods Donald Trump followed to enrich, inviting them to copy them to their own businesses. To learn more, users had to open the link that was in those emails. The link led to a fake news site, which contained an article on how Trump got money. To learn more, users were asked to fill in their personal details in the online form of the site. Obviously, the user did not make money, but digital criminals were getting sensitive data.
“Quite often spammers try to exploit important news and speculation about famous people. Donald Trump was no exception. Users should be aware of this and remain vigilant in order to mitigate the risk. We can also see that social networks are particularly attractive to spammers and phishers. If one of your friends starts behaving differently when he is around online and sends provocatively link or still does tagyou or one of your friends under suspicious publications, it is likely that his account has been violated. Do not open theselink και μην εγκαθιστάτε κανένα λογισμικό που μπορεί να σας υποδεικνύει το σύστημα. Η κοινή λογική μπορεί να αποτρέψει σχεδόν όλες τις «μολύνσεις» αυτού του τύπου. Επιπλέον, ξανασκεφτείτε το πριν ανοίξετε συνημμένα αρχεία σε μηνύματα ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου, αφού ο κίνδυνος «contaminations" of your computer is too high", warns Daria Gudkova, Kaspersky Lab's Spam Analysis Expert.
Kaspersky Lab's Anti-Phishing System was activated 32.363.492 times on user computers. In the second quarter of 2015, the system was activated 30.807.071 times, indicating an increase of almost 5% on an annual basis. 
The largest percentage of users affected by phishing attacks was in China (20,22%), while the second country on the relevant list is Brazil (18,63%), followed by Algeria (14,3%). It is worth noting that the percentage of users affected in the second quarter of 2015 was lower and the top three countries in the relevant ranking were then Brazil (9,74%), the India (8,3%) and China (7,23%). As is evident, the above numbers have doubled on an annual basis.
An unusual anomaly in the circulation volume of the malignant serum was discovered during the second trimester. From 1 June to 21 June, the company's experts noticed a huge reduction in malware sram email campaigns. During this period, there was an 20 decrease in the average number of sms email messages with zip files, compared to the overall average for the quarter. At the same time, the botnet Necurs mysteriously reduced its fraudulent activities.
Kaspersky Lab experts do not have any unshakable proof that these two γεγονότα συνδέονται, αλλά κάτι τέτοιο είναι πιθανό. Διάφορες πηγές στο Διαnetwork reported that the operators behind the Necurs botnet encountered some technical issues, resulting in its shutdown. These problems seem to have been quickly resolved, as from June 21 onwards, the malicious spam email flow was restored along with the botnet's operations.
To stay safe and not fall into the rogue trap, Kaspersky Lab recommends users to show common sense and be careful when online. In general, users should not click on an unreliable link, prevent the installation of plugins from suspicious internet sources, and not disable the Anti-Phishing and Anti-Spam functions of their security solutions.
The complete report on the landscape of spam and phishing in the second quarter of 2016 is available on the website Securelist.com.
Download the full report (PDF)
