KUWAIT CITY, Aug 1: Kaspersky Lab announces the publication of its spam report for the second quarter of 2010. According to the report, one of the most significant events in the last quarter was an unprecedentedly large mass mailing that used HTML-based threats in the form of emails disguised as legitimate notifications from social networks.
An email was distributed that was made to look like a notification from social networks, email providers and popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Amazon, Windows Live, YouTube, Skype, and Wikipedia. These emails were very reminiscent of phishing attempts. However, if a user clicked on the link, they would be taken to a hacked site, from where a malicious script would then be downloaded.
Most often, these links used Trojan-Downloader.JS.Pegel.S, a Trojan that was the most common malicious program found in all unwanted correspondence during the second quarter. These types of Trojans are HTML pages that contain scenarios written in JavaScript. Trojan downloaders are designed to redirect users to a cybercriminal’s webpage containing both advertising content and malicious code that will be downloaded onto the user’s computer. Trojans from the ‘Redirector’ family also behave in the same manner.
A total of three Trojan downloaders were present in the Top 10 during the second quarter. Prior to the June attack, none of these email threats had ranked among the Top 10. This change clearly indicates a planned spam attack.

The USA went firmly into the lead this quarter with 15 percent of all spam emanating from there, while India remains a steady second place with 8.5 percent. Vietnam climbed two places to come in third in the chart. However, there was plenty of jockeying for position throughout the quarter. In April, the USA, India, and Vietnam were neck and neck with 12.3 percent, 11.7 percent, and 11.6 percent respectively, while in May, the USA unequivocally stepped into the lead with 20.8 percent of all spam.
Quite unexpectedly, Italy (3.3 percent) and Spain (2.8 percent) joined the Top 10 sources of spam. Last quarter, these countries were ranked a lowly 14th and 15th place respectively on the chart. Furthermore, the amount of unwanted correspondence originating in Latin America increased to 16.3 percent of the total spam content.
As Kaspersky Lab predicted some time ago, phishers are increasingly focusing their efforts on social and entertainment websites. In addition to PayPal, eBay, and HSBC, the other top phishing targets included Facebook with 6.03 percent and the Google email system with 2.84%.
Kaspersky Lab is the largest antivirus company in Europe. It delivers some of the world’s most immediate protection against IT security threats, including viruses, spyware, crimeware, hackers, phishing, and spam. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users. Kaspersky Lab products provide superior detection rates and one of the industry’s fastest outbreak response times for home users, SMBs, large enterprises and the mobile computing environment. Kaspersky(r) technology is also used worldwide inside the products and services of the industry’s leading IT security solution providers. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com. For the latest on antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and other IT security issues and trends, visit www.securelist.com