BANGALORE, INDIA: Secure Computing Corporation has come out with its monthly spam report for September that outlines the spam trends we are seeing in the field.

Secure Computing's Research team has found three major spam waves in the month of August. Following is an overview of each.

1. CNN/MSNBC News Spam - The Evolution of this Blended Threat Attack

Recently there was a lot of attention on the latest spam tactic used to get users to download a fake flash player onto their system. This attack was in the form of email that varied in its complexity from a simple "CNN Top 10" subject to emails that mimicked the actual CNN news alerts (with links even going back to the CNN site).

As any successful spam campaign will do-this attack mutated during the week with attempts to mimic MSNBC. Subjects included "msnbc.com - BREAKING NEWS" with the breaking news involving everything from Google launching free music downloads in China to reports of credit card numbers being stolen.

The email line was very simple, but included a link for readers to "find out more."

2. Internet Explorer Update Tricks with a Trojan

Secure Computing found another Trojan pretending to be an update to Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. The body was forged to look like a legitimate Microsoft email and would urge the victim to download and install the malware.

While most anti-virus solutions detect this malware, users should watch for these emails and should not click on the attachment. These emails are not from Microsoft, and therefore Microsoft cannot be held responsible for any damage to a user's computer.

3. Fake Madonna Video Turns on the Blue Screen

Poor Angelina Jolie has been the spammer's darling for the last several weeks. Her name was misused in campaigns by Rustock, Srizbi, Grum, Pushdo and others-just to name a few. Now Secure Computing has discovered new mass-mailings from the infamous Grum botnet, only this time featuring pop star Madonna.

The messages with subject lines like "Video Madonna XXX !!!" promise a scandalous video, purporting to be sent from Microsoft as part of an MSN subscription.

Increase in Spam Overall

Initial predictions of a drastic increase in spam this month started out correct, with Secure Computing seeing a 50 percent increase in global volume during the first few days of August. This spike was primarily associated with the news spam outbreak (mentioned above).

However, after the conflict in Georgia commenced on August 8, the spam volume lost half of those gains within two days and steadily trended downward through the end of the month. By the end of the month, global volume was only 10 to 20 percent higher than it was at the start of the month.

Assuming the virus' effectiveness in infecting people was roughly proportionate to prior outbreaks, the size of the botnet should have grown significantly.

From a historical perspective, in August 2007 Secure Computing saw two large spam virus outbreaks. These outbreaks resulted in roughly a 30 percent jump in global volume for the month and began a steady upward trend that lasted until Christmas.

Consequently, Secure Computing expects another winter spam increase to occur and, to make up for lost time, will likely be greater than ever.