As per the data scanned by search giant Google's Postini Anti-Spam Engine (PASE), it is estimated that the spam rate has decreased by 15% in the Q2-2010 in comparison to the same period last year (Q2-2009). Google also reveals that the spam level has increased during the first and the second quarter of 2010, but decreased year-on-year.
It is noticeable that almost three billion email messages are being scanned by Google's PASE daily. Google releases its quarterly statistics with the help of PASE and informs users about the new happenings on the spam front. The story of Virus is a bit different. The Virus traffic was two and a half times more in Q2-2010 than in the second quarter of 2009 (Q2-2009). However, it has increased by 3% since the first quarter of 2010, maintaining a steady level. As per the reports published by networkworl on July 19, 2010, Google stated regarding these data that these trends highlighted that spammers were still extremely active, and the botnets created by them produced spam and virus traffic. An increase in obfuscated (hidden) Javascript attacks has also been reported by the company. These messages are a combination of virus and spam messages. They look like the Non Delivery Report (NDR) messages, which are real messages, but they include some hidden Javascript, which sometimes do things the recipient is unaware of. Sometimes the message might have forwarded the recipient's browser to a pharmaceutical website, or opted to download some unexpected things like virus. Google advices that these messages normally have real Javascript which yields code, but they can change into multiple forms, which make them difficult to detect. Apart from obfuscated Javascript attacks, Google states that the spammers are taking the help of "the classics", like fake social networking messages, current events based e-mails and shipping scams. As per Google, the spam level varies in the short term, but the spam volume has been comparatively flat over the last three quarters. |
