Kaspersky Lab has released a report on spam activity for May 2011. Compared with the previous month, the volume of spam in email traffic increased 2.1%, making up on average 80.8% of the total. A lowering of phishing messages was also noted, while the share of postings containing malware increased.
In May, spammers actively used current hot topics in the news to deceive users. In particular, a surge in the number of messages was detected exploiting the news of the death of Osama bin Laden. Such messages contained malicious files as well as links to legitimate payware.
Russia has become the world leader in terms of the quantity of malware found in emails detected by antivirus programs. The USA, formerly taking first place, now comes second: the quantity of infected emails sent to American users fell by 3.5%. The most widespread malware distributed via email was the Trojan-Spy program Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen. Worms like Email-Worm.Win32.Mydoom.m, Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.gt and Email-Worm.Win32.NetSky.q all remained high in the ratings, while newcomers included two Trojan-Downloader.Win32.FraudLoad Trojans. This type of program installs fake antivirus programs on PCs.
The most marked changes took place in the ratings of web services attacked the most with the use of phishing emails. 4.67% of all phishing emails were intended to steal passwords for the popular free online game RuneScape.
