Dramatic drop in virus-infected emails hitting Australia

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 26 August 2009 10:02

Business IT - Security

Symantec found that in August, of 3,510 websites being blocked daily, 36.1 percent of domains were new, and similar analysis of malware being blocked each day highlighted that only 11.9 percent was newly developed malware.

Key findings from Symantec’s August report included:

•    Spam: The global ratio of spam in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was 88.5 percent (1 in     1.13 emails), reflecting a 0.9 percent decrease since July.

•    Viruses: The global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was one in 296.6 emails (0.34 percent), almost unchanged since July. In August, 14.8 percent of email-borne malware contained links to malicious websites, a decrease of 0.4 percent since July.

•    Phishing: One in 341.2 emails (0.29 percent) comprised some form of phishing attack, a decrease of 0.01 percent since July. When judged as a proportion of all email-borne threats such as viruses and Trojans, the number of phishing emails had decreased by 6.0 percent to 86.9 percent of all email-borne malware threats intercepted in August.

•    Web security: Analysis of web security activity shows that 45.4 percent of all web-based malware intercepted was new in August, an increase of 44.7 percent since July. MessageLabs Intelligence also identified an average of 3,510 new websites per day harbouring malware and other potentially unwanted programs such as spyware and adware, a decrease of 0.01 percent since July.

In its report on geographical trends, Symantec highlights the fact that – spam levels in Australia and Japan declined to 90.6 percent and 89.2 percent respectively.

According to Symantec, Hong Kong was the most spammed country in August although levels fell by 0.8 percent to 93.4 percent, and, although virus activity in China declined to 1 in 196.9 emails, it was placed at the top of the virus table for August.  Singapore and Switzerland maintained their position in the top five countries with virus levels of 1 in 196.9 and 1 in 214.0 emails respectively.

Meanwhile, virus activity in the education sector increased with 1 in 120.0 emails being infected in August, keeping it top of the virus table, while virus levels for the IT services sector were 1 in 262.5, 1 in 490.3 for retail, 1 in 171.9 for public sector and 1 in 288.4 for the chemical and pharmaceutical sector.