Valentine’s Day-related E-mails Increased Spam Volumes During February 2012, Reports Symantec

Symantec Corp., which lately published its Symantec Intelligence Report (February 2012) results, yet again demonstrated how spam volumes rose whenever a special event or holiday was round the corner. Actually, according to the security researchers of the company, they witnessed an increase in spam mails based on the Valentine theme with the approaching of February 14, the Valentine's Day.

The chief subjects within the Valentine's Day oriented junk e-mails included incredible concessions on jewelry, costly gift items, and dinners. Also, well-known bogus promotions consisted of fake gift cards or e-cards, pharmaceuticals bought online, flowers and chocolates, with an objective to seize Internet surfers' financial and other personal information, the company states.

The company further states that its researchers observed a 3-and-½ time increase in the total number of junk e-mails, related to the event, over the mean value, per day, during the week.

Giving a description of this fascinating occurrence, Cyber Security Intelligence Manager Paul Wood at Symantec stated that the spam levels began dropping again from February 15 followed with an extreme rise that was somewhat late on February 16, with a nearly six-fold increase over the per day mean level of Valentine themed spam mails. Gmanetwork.com published this in news on March 3, 2012.

Moreover, alongside the above stated subject, Symantec's latest report further talks about as well as explains the news related to Botnet Waledac, which resurfaced during February 2012. In fact, many reports were published regarding the 'Kelihos' botnet version's reappearance that the security company identified as W32.Waledac.C. Previously, Waledac was notoriously known to be a spam spewing network of bots. Incidentally, the W32.Waledac.C variant as well is spewing spam although with a change. Symantec thinks, albeit not sure, that Waledac.C is possibly getting utilized for promoting the Rospres.com website alternatively for publicizing any Russian contestant's recent canvassing of election participation.

Finally, Symantec's new monthly report further discusses February 2012's phishing activities. According to it, the month saw a 0.01% rise in the total phishing incidences across the world, thereby making the worldwide mean percentage of phishing as 0.28% or 1 phishing e-mail in 358.1 messages.

Related article: Valentine’s Day Spam Still Continues

» SPAMfighter News - 3/12/2012