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SA tops phishing hit list


Johannesburg, 06 Jun 2011

South Africa was the most targeted geography in the world for phishing e-mails in May, with one in 80.2 e-mails identified as phishing attacks.

This is according to the Symantec May 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Annual Security Predicts for 2011 report.

Spam accounted for 75.9% of e-mail traffic. One in 178.7 e-mails contained malicious code. In addition, SA's financial institutions were the main target of phishing e-mails during the month.

“It's no surprise that SA is featuring on the global radar for malicious activity,” says Jayson O'Reilly, Symantec's security specialist.

“Our research shows that countries that introduce new communications capacity immediately experience an upsurge, as attackers try to take advantage of an online society which may not have the experience to avoid being hit by scams such as phishing and spam attacks.

“In some cases, it takes time for service providers to implement the necessary security measures on their networks to protect subscribers.”

MessageLabs Intelligence reveals that spammers are establishing their own their own fake URL-shortening services to perform URL redirection.

This new spamming activity has contributed to this month's increase in spam by 2.9 percentage points, a rise that was also expected following the Rustock botnet takedown in March, says MessageLabs.

Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst, says: “What is unique about the new URL-shortening sites is that the spammers are treating them as 'stepping stones' - a link between public URL-shortening services and the spammers' own sites.”

He adds: “With legitimate URL-shortening services attempting to tackle abuse more seriously, spammers seem to be experimenting with ways to establish their own services to better avoid disruption.”

Targeted cyber attacks to rise

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