According to security vendor PandaLabs, its analysis on 430 million email messages from 2008 revealed only 8.4% of messages that reached companies were legitimate. Some 89.88% of messages were spam, while 1.11% were infected with some type of malware. Only January 2008 witnessed levels of spam below 80%. The amount of spam fluctuated throughout the year, peaking in the second quarter at 94.27% of all mail reaching companies.
With respect to infected messages in 2008, the Netsky.P worm was the most frequently detected malicious code. This type of malware activates automatically when users view the infected message through the Microsoft Office Outlook preview pane. It does this by exploiting a vulnerability in Internet Explorer that allows automatic execution of email attachments.
“The fact that these two malicious codes often act in unison explains the high number of detections of both,” said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, in a press release. “Cyber crooks often launch several strains of malware with each exploit to increase the chances of infection, so even if users whose systems are up-to-date are immune to the exploit, they could still fall victim to infection by the worm if they run the attachment.”
The Rukap.G backdoor Trojan, designed to allow attackers to take control of a computer, and the Dadobra.Bl Trojan were also among the most prevalent malicious code. Much of this spam was circulated by the extensive network of zombie computers controlled by cyber-crooks. A zombie is a computer infected by a bot, a type of malware allowing cyber criminals to control infected systems. Frequently, these computers are used as a network to drive malicious actions such as the sending of spam. Just in the last three months of the year, 301,000 zombie computers were being put into action every day.
With respect to the different types of spam in circulation, 32.25% of spam in 2008 was related to pharmaceutical products with sexual performance enhancers accounting for 20.5%.
Spam relating to the economic situation also grew significantly throughout 2008. False job offers and fraudulent diplomas accounted for 2.75% of all junk mail in the year, while messages promoting mortgages and fake loans were responsible for 4.75%.
Spam promoting fake brand products, such as Swatches, was responsible for 16.75% of the total. This last category nevertheless, dropped from 21% in the first half of the year to 12.5% in the last six months. To view an entire breakdown of the variety of spam subjects that PandaLabs discovered, please access the data here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/panda_security/3234535186/.