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Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Malware in E-Mail Rose Dramatically in September, Security Pros Report
The amount of e-mail-borne malware attacks jumped dramatically during the month of September, according to security researchers at MX Logic and Symantec. In its “October Threat Forecast & Report,” security vendor MX Logic reported that 5.14 percent of all e-mails in September contained malware, more than twice August’s percentage and more than five times January’s rate of 0.95 percent. Symantec had similar findings in its October “State of Spam” report, where the vendor reported the percentage of e-mails with malicious code multiplied about 12 times between June and September. “The two largest contributors to this increase in September were e-mails purporting to be an iPhone game and fake FedEx delivery notifications,” said Sam Masiello, vice president of information security at MX Logic.
“The malware for the fake iPhone games was named by the major anti-virus vendors as being associated with the Srizbi botnet.
Although Srizbi is still prevalent, it has been overtaken by the Cutwail/Rustock botnet as it relates to daily mail volumes.”