Spam Level Boosts Two Months in a Row

Spam Level Boosts Two Months in a Row

According to a report by MessageLabs, the number of spam messages circulated in the web has significantly increases since April.
 

The increase was recorded at 5.1 percent, reaching a total of 90.4 percent. Semantec senior analyst Paul Wood said, “In 2008 CAPTCHA-breaking, social networking spam and the use of webmail for spamming all became popular tactics. Today, the bad guys are using the three together as a triple threat to heighten the effectiveness of their spamming.

 

Based on the report, most of the spam messages contain very little content which which are usually embedded with hyperlinks. The hyperlinks often direct to social networking profiles which are randomly created and consist of automated CAPTCHA-breaking tools.

 

MessageLabs also said the emails originated from valid webmail services. Geographic location was one of the many factors considered by spammers. Peak time in the US is between 9 am to 10 am, while email account holders in the Asia-Pacific region get thousands of spam early in the morning.