Hosting News
Barracuda Networks Predicts Spam Volumes Beyond 95 Percent in 2009
2008-12-17
Campbell, Calif., Dec. 16, 2008 Marking the five-year anniversary since
the CAN-SPAM act was signed into law, Barracuda Networks Inc., the worldwide
leader in email and Web security appliances, predicts that spam volumes will
rise slightly higher than 95 percent in the year ahead as growing use of botnets
continues to proliferate. An analysis of data from the more than one billion
daily emails targeted at Barracuda Spam Firewalls worldwide, finds that spam
levels in 2008 were largely unchanged over the previous year, making up between
90 and 95 percent of total email attempts.
As the end of the year quickly approaches, many are asking if spam levels can
get any worse in the new year, said Stephen Pao, vice president of product
management for Barracuda Networks. There are a couple factors that we predict
may cause spam to increase slightly in 2009, however, it is equally important to
note that the level of legitimate email is also increasing each year.
One such factor that may cause an increase in spam levels in the months to come
is the emergence of spam originating from countries that had not previously been
known for sending spam. For instance, Barracuda Centrals top 10 spam countries
list ranks Brazil and Turkey in the second and fifth spots respectively.
What is interesting is where both of these countries rank on the list relative
to the 'usual suspects' of China and Russia in terms of spam originating
countries, said Pao. We believe that this is due in part to both residential
broadband penetration and proliferation of data centers in various countries
around the world. As broadband availability increases, the reach and control of
botnet activity also grows. Unsecured data centers are ripe for hacking and
hosting of malicious content.
Hidden identities to continue in 2009
Analysis of data from the more than one billion daily emails received by
Barracuda Spam Firewalls found that identity obfuscation techniques were
prevalent in a vast majority of spam campaigns sent in 2008. Hacked Web sites,
the use of free hosting providers, as well as the rotation of new Web domains
within the same campaign were all techniques that played major roles in hiding
the identities of spammers in 2008.
The investments that Barracuda Networks made in 2007 in the development of
Predictive Sender Profiling techniques paid off big in 2008 as we successfully
protected our customers from some of the most egregious spam attacks, said Pao.
We believe that online scammers will continue to find new ways to hide their
identities in 2009, making traditional IP reputation and content scanning less
relevant.
Predictive Sender Profiling capabilities provide industry-leading protection
against spammers attempts to evade traditional reputation analysis. Utilizing a
network of more than 70,000 customer systems worldwide, Barracuda Networks has
the most diverse compilation of email available for profiling the behavior of
spammers. Using this data enables the Barracuda Spam Firewall to more easily
fingerprint and block actual spam campaigns even when identity obfuscation
techniques are used.
Increased reliance on brand names, social engineering techniques
In addition to botnet proliferation and identity obfuscation techniques, clever
socially engineered phishing emails also continued to be a dominant force in
2008. In just the last quarter, several spam campaigns increased the use of
trusted brands such as Microsoft and Google as well as more consumer-centric
brands like Hallmark and McDonalds in attempts to lure recipients into
providing personal account information, or as an attempt to persuade users to
execute potentially malicious downloads onto their PCs.
Phishing attacks are certainly not new techniques, but the levels of
sophistication that are used can be quite astounding, said Pao.
In November 2008, the Google brand was used as part of a phishing campaign to
harvest users personal Google account information, the site that the phishing
email recipient was taken to was nearly indistinguishable from a legitimate
Google site.
We believe that the combination of social engineering and sender identity
obfuscation techniques will continue to merge, making it even more essential
that customers use caution when accessing applications or providing personal
information via URLs provided in emails, added Pao.
Barracuda Networks reminds email users to refrain from clicking on links within
email from unknown or suspicious senders, and instead to copy and paste the link
into their Web browser or visit the site directly.
Click here for more information
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