AHMEDABAD, INDIA: Cyberoam, a division of Elitecore Technologies announced that the Q4 email threat trends of 2007 revealed a steep rise in attacks using social networking techniques targeting user psychology and behavior patterns.
Spammers launched attacks by predicting user behavior patterns, such as looking for easy cash and discounted gifts during the holiday season, or preying on consumer trust to generate interest in cheap pharmaceutical products and stocks.
Existing security solutions were unable to block the new spam formats and techniques, resulting in an alarming rise in spam levels reaching 96 percent by the end of 2007. Spammers used the Storm Worm, an aggressive and self-preserving botnet, to generate, host and distribute large amounts of spam and malware in 2007. Consequently, the Storm Worm's massive outbreak accounted for 7-10 percent of all global spam traffic at its peak. Experts agree, however, that the worm has yet to reach its damaging potential.
The Address Validation Spam sending seemingly harmless, incoherent or empty email messages from an unfamiliar address was used to validate the email addresses in the botnet owners' list. The 'clean' list was then rented out at a higher value to spammers and other cyber villains. Spam attacks in short, intense waves by the Stration malware maximized damage in the first few hours of the attack before anti-virus signature updates could be released.
Spammers gained financially by using traditional image spam techniques, promoting pharmaceutical products and pump-and-dump stocks with images that included non-clickable URLs and stock ticker symbols. Recipients interested in the products and stocks opened a web browser and manually typed in the URLs, driving up the sales of cheap pharmaceutical products and stock prices.
Spam emails using holiday subject lines easily slipped past anti-spam filters and users' suspicions. These emails took users to malicious websites and attempted to download Trojan software. Most anti-spam solutions were ineffective, as blocking emails leveraging holiday-themed keywords often resulted in false positives.
The Q4 2007 Email Threat Trend Report, prepared in collaboration with Commtouch, revealed that botnets are becoming more sophisticated and difficult to control. Traditional IP blocking technologies are unable to maintain pace with the dynamic IP activation and deactivation of innumerable botnets.
