In a statement, Kaspersky said that nearly half (45 percent) of global email traffic was spam in the third quarter. new search. Topping the list of “annoying countries” is Russia (25 percent), followed by Germany (14 percent), China (10 percent) and the United States (9 percent).
The Netherlands moved up to fifth place (5 per cent). In the first quarter of 2020, that was still 3.4 percent. At the time, the Netherlands was ranked seventh in the world.
Notorious hosting providers
According to Kaspersky researcher, the main role of the Netherlands as a source of spam is Jornt van der Wiel This is partly due to the large number of servers in our country and the reliability of the IT infrastructure. The relatively low cost of its operation also plays a role. “Local law seems to play a major role here – along with some notorious hosting providers – stating that IT providers are not responsible for the content they host. This means that organizing spam attacks is much faster and easier due to the lack of control and supervision,” van der Wiel said in response.
Malware
Many spam messages are intended to spread malware. In total, nearly 36 million pieces of malware were detected by Kaspersky’s Mail Anti-Virus in the third quarter. This is 1.7 million more than the previous quarter.
The most common spam malware is the Agensla Trojans, which aims to steal credentials.
Trend: corporate data theft
Kaspersky said that spammers are increasingly targeting corporate data theft. “The cybercriminals asked the recipients to make a payment, but when they went to the website to view the payment request, they were asked to enter their business account credentials. In case of compliance, the cybercriminals were given the account credentials in the hands.”
Also, cybercriminals are increasingly misusing well-known brand names as bait for phishing attacks. According to Kaspersky, these are the names of Internet portals (21 percent), online stores (21 percent), banks (12 percent), payment systems (8 percent), social networks and blogs (6 percent).
Lots of fake online stores around holidays
The security company warns consumers about fake online stores and fraudulent copies of online holiday trading platforms. “Business users should also be careful — even a congratulatory email that appears to be from a partner can be phishing for confidential information,” Kaspersky said.
