Symantec releases latest Intelligence Report!

Symantec presented its latest Intelligence Report with the following highlights:

* Spam – 74.8 percent in September (a decrease of 1.1 percentage points since August 2011).
* Phishing – One in 447.9 emails identified as phishing (a decrease of 0.26 percentage points since August 2011).
* Malware – One in 188.7 emails in September contained malware (an increase of 0.04 percentage points since August 2011).
* Malicious Web sites – 3,474 Web sites blocked per day (an increase of 1 percent since August 2011).
* 44.6 percent of all malicious domains blocked were new in September (an increase of 10.0 percentage points since August 2011).
* 14.5 percent of all Web-based malware blocked was new in September (a decrease of 2.9 percentage points since August 2011).
* Malicious emails masquerade as office printer messages.
* Spammers exploit WordPress vulnerability to promote pharmaceutical spam Web sites Fake Offers with Fake Trust Seals. (One hopes WordPress is aware of this and taking remedial action!)
* Spammers and malware authors making increasing use of obfuscated JavaScript.Source: Symantec.

The spam rate was 74.8 percent, as against last month's 75.9 percent. The top five geographies are Saudi Arabia 84 percent, Russian Federation 79.9 percent, Malaysia 79.8 percent, Luxembourg 79.1 percent and Italy 78.6 percent. The top five verticals targeted are automotive 77.8 percent, education 77.2 percent, marketing/media 76.4 percent, non-profit 76.4 percent and manufacturing 76.2 percent.

As for spam sources, US leads with 47.5 percent of spam originating from there. India at 9.6 percent, UK at 8.1 percent, Brazil at 7.6 percent, Russian Federation at 6.7 percent, China at 5,4 percent, Germany at 4.3 percent, Vietnam at 3.8 percent, Japan at 3.8 percent and Canada at 3 percent, make up the top 10 countries.

As for virus, 72 of email-borne malware was associated with variants of generic polymorphic malware, including Bredolab, Sasfis, SpyEye and Zeus variants.

New malware and spyware sites are appearing per day. Around 44.6 percent of all malicious domains blocked were new in September; an increase of 10 percentage points compared with August. Also, 14.5 percent of all Web-based malware blocked was new in September; a decrease of 2.9 percentage points since August.

Next, 20.8 percent of the most frequently blocked malware last month was identified and blocked using generic detection.