Phishing Scams and Spam Reportedly Down in October

By: Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Mashable

Phishing scams on social networks have shrunk considerably in October, and spam in general has decreased too, according to a report by Internet security giant Kaspersky Lab released last Friday.

Compared to September, phishing attacks -- emails that trick users into sharing private or financial information with hackers that can then steal their money -- decreased by more than 10% last month. Even though that's clearly good news, it wasn't exactly a surprise for the analysts at Kaspersky Lab.

"The fact is that in summer phishers mostly attack schoolchildren and students who spend lots of time surfing the Internet during their holidays," writes Darya Gudkova, Kaspersky Lab's head of content analysis and research. "As business activity starts to resume at the end of summer, fraudsters return their attention to financial organizations."

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