Kaspersky Lab Report on Spam in Q3 2015: Spammers Exploit Tourists

Woburn, MA – November 12, 2015 --Kaspersky Lab’s latest report, Spam and Phishing in Q3 2015, reveals the most recent spam and phishing trends around the world. The report shows spam is using an increasing variety of tactics to deceive recipients and bypass email filters, although the percentage of spam in email traffic has decreased since Q2.

The top three countries that are producing spam are the United States with 15.3 percent, Vietnam with 8.4 percent and China with 7.2 percent. The report shows that in Q3 of 2015, spam accounted for 54.2 percent of email traffic, a 0.8 percent drop from the previous quarter. The report also shows that a new phishing email trick became popular in Q3. In order to bypass spam filters, the text of the email and fraudulent links were placed in an attached PDF document rather than in the message body.

Another type of spam email seen offered a selection of brides (mainly from Russia and Ukraine) to foreign suitors. After replying, targets were sent further spam emails and some ‘brides’ asked for money to visit their ‘suitors.’

Antispam Analyst at Kaspersky Lab, Tatyana Shcherbakova says, “During the third quarter of 2015 we saw spammers exploit the summer holiday season. A variety of tactics were used – from sending fake notifications on behalf of hotels, to sending fraudulent links in PDF attachments, and requests for money to lonely ‘suiters.’ With this variety of tactics expanding, it’s vital that users protect themselves online with the latest cybersecurity tools.”

Much like in Q2, the fake HTML page Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen once again topped the rating of malicious programs sent by email. Its messages lure targets by imitating an important notification from a commercial bank, airline or online store. In Q3 2015, the Kaspersky Lab Anti-Phishing system was triggered 36,300,537 times on the computers of Kaspersky Lab users. This is 6 million times more than the previous quarter. In addition, 839,672 phishing wildcards were added to Kaspersky Lab databases in Q3.

There were some significant changes in the top three countries targeted by mailshots in Q3 2015. Germany, 18.47 percent, remained on top, although its contribution dropped by 1.12 percent since Q2. The amount of malicious spam originating from Brazil almost doubled in Q3 compared to Q2, putting Brazil in second place, 11.7 percent. Russia moved quickly up the ranks from fifth to third place,7.56 percent, as its share grew by 2.82 percent. The UK, which was second in Q2, ended Q3 in sixth place at 4.56 percent. 

The US remained the largest source of spam in Q3, with 15.34 percent of spam originating from the country. Vietnam was second with 8.42 percent, compared to 3.38 percent in the previous quarter. China was the third largest source of spam in the quarter accounting for 7.15 percent of spam, and its share remained unchanged from the previous quarter.

Russia, which was in second position in Q2, dropped its share 2.03 percent to 5.79 percent, pushing it to the fourth position. It was followed by Germany at 4.39 percent and France at 3.32 percent, both of which changed only slightly since Q2.

After some relatively stable months in the second quarter, there were some shifts in the percentage of spam in global email traffic. An increase in spam during July and August 2015 was followed by a noticeable drop in September. As a result, the average percentage of spam in Q3 amounted to 54.19 percent, slightly higher than the average for the previous quarter.

For the full ‘Spam and Phishing in Q3 2015’ report, click here.

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Media contact:
Sarah Kitsos
sarah.kitsos@kaspersky.com
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