Spam shifts to the East

Johannesburg, 01 Sept 2009

The economic crisis has had little impact on spam volumes during the first half of this year. Spam represented 85.5% of all mail traffic during this time, about the same amount as seen in the first half of 2008. However, the countries considered the main culprits in terms of spam distribution, are now based in the East as opposed to the West.

Asia and Latin America, as well Eastern Europe, with the exception of Russia, are being targeted more by spammers, as users in these areas are poorly protected against cyber threats. “There is no simple answer as to why this is,” says Costin Raiu, chief security expert, Kaspersky Lab EEMEA Global Research and Analysis Team, commenting on the findings of the company's half yearly spam report.

“Research seems to indicate the piracy rate is higher in these countries as opposed to say, countries in Western Europe. In general, high piracy rate is related to the low income in those specific countries coupled with a long history of just taking software for granted,” he says.

Additionally, Raiu continues, it is known that the most recent versions of Microsoft Windows will not update themselves if they discover they are not genuine. Users of such configurations consequently put themselves at risk from malware attacks. “Education is also a missing factor, I think. In the countries with a strong economy, people can invest in education and the governments can spend funds on raising awareness about cyber threats.

“I think it is a combination of poor economic situation, and a lack of education and user awareness regarding cyber threats,” he says.

According to the report, it is hard to say how long this trend can be expected to continue. It can be assumed, however, that as users in Eastern countries become more aware of security issues, the distribution of infected machines sending spam will level out.

Given that computer technologies are evolving faster than the economy, the report says it is likely that the playing field will level out even before developing regions become highly developed.

Spending trends

The report also revealed that although the crisis has not affected the overall amount of spam in mail traffic, it has had a considerable impact on the distribution of spam by category.

Raiu explains that the financial crisis has triggered a change in people's shopping habits. “People are more careful about what they are spending their money on. Additionally, certain brands have gone out of business. Let's take for instance taxi services. Before the crisis, a lot of people were using taxis to go to work. Once the crisis hit, people started using public transport, which is cheaper. Despite the discounts taxi companies provided, there are still much less people travelling to work by taxi than it was before the crisis. Imagine the case of spammers who send out mails advertising taxi services. Because people have less interest in using their services, they needed to change the subject of their mailings and focus on the most successful categories.”

He cites gambling as one of these, and says during great depression periods, people are willing to invest money in entertainment and having fun. “For instance, just after the financial crisis hit, there was a boom in the sales of game consoles such as Xbox 360 or the Nintendo Wii. I think such companies have found themselves selling more products than ever.

“Another case is medical supplies. Despite the financial crisis, people are still willing to invest money in various medicinal supplies, ranging from antibiotics (which cannot be obtained over the counter in the US, for instance) or physical enhancement products. To summarise, the spammers have simply shifted their mailings to match the consumers, which have restrained their shopping activities to what is essential for their living (medicines, food), and games.”

Drilling down into the info, the report says this primarily affects spam advertising spammer services, now making up a record 16.6% of all spam. By the same token, the total amount of spam offering goods and services in the real sector has dropped 10%.

The report showed that despite predictions to the contrary, the share of phishing e-mails has declined. It was originally assumed that in light of the crisis, these fraudulent e-mails were expected to increase; as a rule, phishers attempt to use negative situations to frighten users and persuade them into providing personal information. However, it seems the anti-phishing measures taken by major payment systems and banks and increased awareness of cyber threats have begun to deter the Internet scammers, the report explained.