More than 10 million pieces of Malware spotted per day last month

by Steve Ragan - Jun 17 2011, 07:00

Based on the numbers from AppRiver, May was a productive month for crooks. An increase of more than two-hundred percent of email-based Malware in May marked the fifth straight month that this type of attack has doubled in quantity. As a whole, AppRiver counted more than 10 million malicious samples per day over the course of the month.

Compiling the data for their June Threat and Spamscape Report, AppRiver noted that there were 2.95 Billion malicious emails delivered last month. Russia held the top spot for point of origin, followed by India, Brazil, and the U.S.

The malicious messages leveraged a number of schemes in an attempt to find victims, including fake Patch Tuesday updates, which delivered the Zeus family of Malware. In addition, there were fake notices from the FBI, containing Bredolab, and emails with various other Malware, hijacking subjects related to current events in order to get attention.

“As is usual following a large news event, scammers rode the coattails of the news with fake news stories of their own hoping to lure in click happy, news hungry victims,” the report noted.

May also marked the public release of a new Malware kit by the name of Weylan-Yutani Bot. If that rings a bell, the name was taken from the fictional company in the movie Aliens. What makes this kit unique is that it has the ability to create scripts designed to infect both PC and Mac machines.

“Mac malware has been around for a while, though it has yet until now been available as a kit,” the report added.

“The kit is selling for 1000 credits WebMoney, which exchanges to about $1065 US, and the authors have guaranteed the addition of iPad and Linux scripts in the very near future. Imagine when a user can browse past an infected site and become a victim regardless of their operating system. To best avoid these situations, internet goers should keep all of their software up to date, especially their OS as well as their browsers as these are often the first targets.”

The full report is online.

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