Spam Hits 95% of All Email

Commtouch published its Email Threats Trend Report 2007. The report is based on the automated analysis of billions of email messages weekly. The report examines the advent of new types of attachment spam such as PDF spam and Excel spam while decreasing the usage of image spam, as well as the growing threat of innocent appearing spam containing links to malicious web sites.

According to the report:

• Global spam levels reached an all-time high: 95% of all emails at its peak during the quarter
• Blended threat messages - or spam messages with links to malicious URLs - accounted for up to 8% of all global email traffic during the peaks of various attacks during the quarter
• One massive outbreak mid-quarter utilized over 11,000 dynamic zombie IP addresses to host malicious web sites. Leading zombie locations included the United States (36%) and Russia (8%)
• Image spam declined to a level of less than 5% of all spam, down from 30% in the first quarter of 2007; also, image pump-and-dump spam has all but disappeared, with pornographic images taking its place
• PDF Spam represented 10-15% of all spam in early July and then dropped significantly, however a steady stream of PDF spam is still being maintained at 3-5% of all spam messages
• Pharmaceuticals and sexual enhancers were the most popular spam topics, at 30% and 23%, respectively

Check out the full report.