According to the latest version of the Kaspersky Lab Security Bulletin, the volume of spam email 2015 has dropped by touching 55,28% of the overall emails. Overall, there was a decrease of 11,48% compared to the previous year. The remarkable decline of spam email can be attributed to the growing popularity of legitimate advertising platforms in social media, voucher offerings, and more.
Among other things, Kaspersky Lab's spam report notes some important trends. More than three quarters (79%) of all email sent were smaller than 2kb, indicating a steady decrease in the size of email used for spam campaigns in recent years.
Financial institutions (eg banks, systems payments, even online stores) were the most frequently attacked by phishing emails (34,33% of all attacks, an increase of 5,59%).
At 2015, digital criminals continued to send fake emails from mobile devices as well as mobile app alerts, which included malware or advertising messages. New rogue tactics included the spread of malicious software in the form of .apk (executable files for Android devices) and .jar (ZIP files containing programs in Java language).
In addition, digital criminals were "hiding" a portable Trojan encryptionς πίσω από ένα φάκελο που περιείχε ενημερώσεις για τον Flash Player. Με την εγκατάστασή του, το κακόβουλο λογισμικό κρυπτογραφούσε εικόνες, έγγραφα και αρχεία βίντεο που βρίσκονταν εγκατεστημένα στη device and then users would receive a message informing them that they need to pay money to decrypt the files.
"Increased use of mobile devices in our daily lives for tasks such as messaging and data exchange or access to and control of our bank accounts has increased exploitation opportunities for digital criminals.
The mobile devices malware and fraudulent spam are becoming increasingly popular and efforts to exscamvictimization are evolving more and more year by year, with the emergence of applications that can be used by digital criminals so directly (to send spam and malicious spam) and indirectly (via Phishing Email). Therefore, mobile device users should be alert and remain alert, as it is more likely that the activities of digital criminals will increase as our dependence on mobile devices increases, warns Daria Loseva, Spam Analysis Expert from Kaspersky Lab.
The United States remained the biggest source of spam (15,2%), with Russia ranked second (6,15%) in the list and Vietnam (6,12%) passing China and rising to third place. Germany was the country most affected, with 19,06% of all spam attacks, a size increased by 9,84% compared to 2014.
Followed by Brazil with 7,64% (+ 4,09%), which was second in the list, while 2014 was the sixth. Russia has ranked third in the list since the eighth, with spam attacks increasing by 3,06%, reaching 6,03% of the total by 2015.
The main themes of spam attacks
Although there is still some time left before the Brazilian Olympic Games, crooks have already begun to exploit this issue. In particular, they send out emails informing the recipients that they have won in relative draws, asking them to fill in a form with their personal details. In these attacks, emails with attached pdf files, pictures and other widgets are designed to fool the spam filters.
Financial scams like the “Nigerian scam” used topics such as the political situation in Ukraine, the civil war in Syria, the elections in Nigeria and the earthquake in Nepal to exploit the kindness and sensitivity of recipients. The content of these messages appealed to material support for a person in need.
More information about the landscape of spam and phishing 2015 is available on the site Securelist.com.
