In a new report issued this week, MessageLabs has outlined that Spam levels are almost back to the same volume as before McColo was closed in November of 2008. The levels, up almost five points since December, are reaching the 75 percent mark.
Spam levels returning to normal hated levels.(IMG:J.Anderson)
Among the top-10 botnets responsible for distributing Spam, Mega-D (Ozdoc) had the highest throughput in January, sending more than 26 million e-mails per minute, whilst Cutwail (Pandex) remains the largest botnet, with more than one million active IPs this month. Some of the top-10 most active botnets contributing to the Spam increase are new to the Web, including Xarvester, Donbot, and Waledac.
“The potential of these botnets to pam in large volumes is a major concern,” said Paul Wood, an Intelligence Analyst with MessageLabs. “In particular, Waledac is believed to be the next generation of the infamous botnet Storm (Peacomm).”
“Whilst Waledac malware was spread at an alarming rate in January, it was dispersing spam in relatively small volumes. For now, the botnet controllers are clearly focusing on growing and developing this new botnet resource rather than using it to spam. It will be one to watch as 2009 progresses.”
Other interesting figures from the report included 11.5 percent of all Web-based Malware intercepted was new in January. This accounts for a six percent jump in new discoveries compared to those in December. In January, 11.8 percent of e-mail-borne Malware contained links to malicious sites, an increase of 9.1 percent since December 2008.
January saw a decrease of 0.14 percent in the proportion of Phishing attacks, compared with December 2008. One in 396.2 (.25 percent) e-mails comprised some form of Phishing attack. When judged as a proportion of all e-mail-borne threats, such as viruses and Trojans, the number of Phishing e-mails had decreased by 11.2 percent to 64.9 percent of all e-mail-borne Malware threats intercepted in January.
“Toward the end of 2008, the MessageLabs Intelligence team predicted a botnet renaissance in which the cybercriminals would improve the technology behind their botnets, creating a new vanguard. Based on the increase in power, numbers, and new bots, the cybercriminals seem to be living up to the prediction,” Wood said.
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