BANGALORE, INDIA: Secure Computing Corporation has come out with its monthly spam report for October that outlines the spam trends for September.

1. Obama Beating McCain (in Spam that is)
The highest volume of political spam sent in September is associated with Senator Barrack Obama, who has a landslide win in spam messages sent containing his name vs. his presidential opponent, John McCain.

The Barack Obama email surge appears to have been purposely timed for September 3rd to coincide with the middle of the Republican national convention, where Sarah Palin had become the talk of the town and expectations were building up to the introduction of the nominees.

This may have been meant as a tactic (by the spammers) to attempt to squash out more legitimate emails or be accepted because of them, or it may have simply been an attempt to take advantage of a national interest in the election convention.

2. Financial Crisis Hits US Banks; Spammers are there
With the US financial crisis just gearing up at the end of September, it is our prediction that phishing scams which revolve around collapsed companies or buy-outs will be all the rage in October.

Some administrators may feel inclined to warn their users not to believe any "we need to update our records after the buy-out" emails if they begin to appear. Wachovia was #2 on the list of most phished banks in September, but the emails preceded their purchase by Citibank.

Chase, Wachovia, Colonial, and Bank of America were the big four for this month and with more buy-outs and mergers on the horizon, October is shaping up to be a busy spam month.

We are hopeful that users and administrators take the correct precautions and ignore these types of phishing emails, but with so many banks in the crosshairs of the current financial crisis, we fear that many might fall victim for the first time because the phishing emails talk about real-world events.

Our continued advice to everyone: Just Say No to emails from any bank.