The percentage of fraudulent e-mails in spam traffic increased 20-fold, from 0.1% in the second quarter, to 2% in the third quarter.
This is according to Kaspersky Lab, which adds that both the quality of fraudulent messages and the variety of social engineering techniques deployed is also striking. The company says phishing e-mails increased slightly in the third quarter, and account for just 0.03% of all mail traffic.
At the same time, the share of attacks on Facebook increased by five percentage points, seeing the social network move up from fifth to third place in the rating of most popular phishing targets. The company notes that just two banks appeared in the list's top 10. Kaspersky explains this is because the theft of real money is more risky than stealing virtual money, while both approaches are almost equally lucrative.
According to Kaspersky, the volume of spam fell steadily throughout the quarter; however, it warns that spam content has become more dangerous. Kaspersky says that, on average, a record-breaking 5.03% of spam contained malicious attachments, up 1.17%. It says the increase may be attributed to the holiday season and the 'second wave' of the global economic crisis.
New spammer methods
The company further warns that cyber criminals send e-mails with links to legitimate Web resources. However, the links carry an SQL injection and users are actually taken to compromised sites that redirect the recipients to the fraudster's resources.
Multi-stage attacks
Kaspersky says that while fraudsters used the traditional methods, multi-stage attacks are also emerging. According to the company, these can take the form of e-mail invitations to take part in a survey for payment. Here, users follow a link to what appears to be a customer satisfaction survey. However, once they have submitted the survey, they are asked for their financial details in order to process the promised payment.
Kaspersky also notes that the major trend in the third quarter was an increase in spam from emerging countries. According to the company, India, Indonesia and Brazil were the top three sources of spam, accounting for +0.7%, +4.7% and +0.8% of spam, respectively.
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