Spam levels on the rise again

Spam levels have shot back up to February levels, according to new research.

Findings from managed email security company SoftScan showed that spam currently accounts for 90 per cent of all email sent during June. Although during the month the levels dropped as low as 86 per cent on some days.

But experts believe that these fluctuations signify either a change in tactics by spammers or a drop in customers buying spam lists.

"Unfortunately I don't believe that this signifies a change for the better since the overall trend is so high. Like any other business, apparently spam shops also suffer poor trading days," said Diego d'Ambra, chief technical officer of SoftScan.

He said that his company recorded the highest level of spam it had ever seen when it at one point in June 96.55 per cent of email passing through its filters was classed as junk mail. This level happened at the weekend when there was less legitimate business email flowing through the internet. This figure narrowly beat February's record of 96.22 per cent.

Other research has found that there was a sharp increase in the number of web-based threats in June. Top of the list was the Iframe attack, which injects malicious code into web pages, this accounted for nearly two-thirds of the internet's infected web pages, according to data fro anti-virus firm Sophos.

Earlier last month IT PRO reported that thousands of Italian websites were hit by the Mpack virus, which used a common IFRAME vulnerability to deploy a slew of malware attacking unsuspecting web users around the world.

Victim websites included Italian city councils, employment services and tourism sites. Most of the affected pages appeared to be hosted by one of the largest ISPs in Italy.

"The Italian Iframe attack should certainly act as a wake-up call to ISPs across the globe," said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. "Malicious code dumped on these websites is just waiting to pounce on innocent surfers. Websites should be as secure as Fort Knox, but at the moment, too many web pages are easy pickings for cybercriminals."

The attack led to Italy entering the top ten list of countries hosting malware-infected web pages at number seven.

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