Commtouch Q3 Internet Threats Trend Report Highlights Increase in Android Malware

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Oct 23, 2012, 06:00 ET

MCLEAN, Virginia, October 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Commtouch® (NASDAQ: CTCH), a leading provider of cloud-based solutions for security companies and service providers, today released its October 2012 Commtouch Internet Trends Report.

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Android Malware on the Rise

Android malware continues to grow - both in volume and in the number of variants of Trojans and viruses.  Proof of Android's increasing popularity was a July attack that only targeted the Google OS. The attack made use of compromised email accounts to send simple one-link emails.  In the past this method has been used to distribute links to spam products or links to drive-by malware downloads.  In this case the malware URLs only worked for Android devices.

The report also notes that the Grum spam botnet was taken down in July, but that only a very short-lived reduction in spam and zombie levels was observed.

Led by Avi Turiel, director of threat research and market analysis, Commtouch's Internet Threat Analysis Team regularly publishes related statistics within its report. The quarterly report is compiled based on a comprehensive analysis of billions of daily transactions handled by Commtouch's GlobalView™ Cloud. The results for the third quarter of 2012 include:

  • 87 billion - The average number of daily spam/phishing emails sent
  • 74 percent - Percent of all email that was spam
  • 1.9 billion - The average number of daily emails sent with attached malware
  • Education - The Web site category most likely to contain malware
  • Pharmacy ads - The most popular spam topic, representing 41.2 percent of all spam
  • India - The country with the most zombies

Olympics Used in Advance Fee Fraud

419 (advance fee fraud) emails make up nearly 5 percent of emails sent. The Olympic Games (July and August) proved to be a popular theme for 419 scams during the quarter. Most scams promised money from Olympics-related lotteries. Other emails offered Olympic-related merchandise for large fees or offered recipients interesting Olympic job-opportunities (in exchange for "processing" fees).  

In addition, October's report included a listing of:

Top 10 categories of Web sites most likely to be compromised with malware

  1. Education
  2. Shopping
  3. Sports
  4. Business
  5. Entertainment
  6. Restaurants & Dining
  7. Travel
  8. Health & Medicine
  9. Streaming Media
  10. Leisure & Recreation

Top 10 most detected malware

  1. SWF-malform-1
  2. W32/Ramnit.Q
  3. W32/Conficker!Generic
  4. W32/Mabezat.A-2
  5. W32/Agent.PJ.gen!Eldorado
  6. CVE-2010-333
  7. W32/MyWeb.D@adw
  8. W32/Injector.A.gen!Eldorado
  9. W32/Mabezat.A-1
  10. W32/Tenga.3666

Worldwide zombie distribution

  1. India - 20.85%
  2. Brazil - 8.37%
  3. China - 7.52%
  4. Vietnam - 6.43%
  5. Russian Federation - 4.54%
  6. Germany - 3.15%
  7. Argentina - 2.98%
  8. Iran - 2.93%
  9. Peru - 2.83%
  10. Spain - 2.80%
  11. Pakistan - 2.36%
  12. Belarus - 2.03%
  13. Colombia - 1.86%
  14. Kazakhstan - 1.72%
  15. Romania - 1.62%
  16. Other - 28.0%

"Attacks that exclusively target Android clearly show that it's becoming a more popular target," Turiel said. "Additionally, the takedown of the Grum botnet shows us the error of prematurely celebrating such events - the reduction in spam ultimately only lasted a day or so. This illustrates the unfortunate resilience of those that seek to continue utilizing zombies and sending out spam."

To view the entire October 2012 Commtouch Internet Trends Report, visit: http://www.commtouch.com/threat-report-oct-2012

About Commtouch

Commtouch® (NASDAQ: CTCH) safeguards the world's leading security companies and service providers with cloud-based Internet security services. Real-time threat intelligence from Commtouch's GlobalView™ Cloud powers its Web filtering, email security and antivirus solutions, protecting thousands of organizations and hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Visit http://www.commtouch.com.

Recurrent Pattern Detection, RPD, Zero-Hour and GlobalView are trademarks, and Commtouch is a registered trademark of Commtouch. U.S. Patent No. 6,330,590 is owned by Commtouch.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Company Contact:
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Commtouch
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+972-9-8636813 (Int'l)
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SOURCE Commtouch