SECURITYWEEK NETWORK:

ICS:

Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Email Security

To Russia With Love: Kaspersky Report Shows Russia Received Most Malware in May

Kaspersky Lab, in its most recent spam report for May 2011, revealed that across its user base, Russia has taken the number one position in terms of the quantity of malware detected in emails by antivirus software. According to Kaspersky’s data, Russia overtook the United States, where the quantity of malware infected emails received fell by 3.5 percent. The most widespread malware distributed via email was the Trojan-Spy program Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen.

Kaspersky Lab, in its most recent spam report for May 2011, revealed that across its user base, Russia has taken the number one position in terms of the quantity of malware detected in emails by antivirus software. According to Kaspersky’s data, Russia overtook the United States, where the quantity of malware infected emails received fell by 3.5 percent. The most widespread malware distributed via email was the Trojan-Spy program Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen. Worms like Email-Worm.Win32.Mydoom.m, Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.gt and Email-Worm.Win32.NetSky.q all remained high in the ratings, while newcomers included two Trojan-Downloader.Win32.FraudLoad Trojans.

Kaspersky Threat ReportSymantec, in its May 2011 Intelligence Report showed that as the overall spam level increased in May 2011, Russia became the most spammed geography, with a spam rate of 82.2%, but marked the UK as the country with the highest virus rate in emails at a rate of 1 in 91.7. Why the disparity? Due to Kaspersky Lab’s large footprint in Russia (Kaspersky Lab is a Moscow based company), it has a large marketshare compared to other regions of the world, and is thus likely seeing more activity across its customer base in the region. Experiencing 38% worldwide growth from 2009 to 2010, Kaspersky Lab generated 66 percent of its revenue from Europe and EEMEA.

According to Kaspersky Lab, in May, spammers tapped hot topics in the news to deceive users. In particular, Kaspersky notes, a surge in the number of messages exploiting the news of the death of Osama bin Laden was seen.

The most marked changes took place in the ratings of web services attacked the most with the use of phishing emails. 4.67 per cent of all phishing emails were intended to steal passwords for the popular free online game RuneScape. As a result, this platform made its debut in the top-ten straight in at No. 3 – way ahead of World of Warcraft – the most popular online game in the world. RuneScape is also of interest to cybercriminals, as it has access to user details of the popular social networking site, Facebook. The overall leader in the rating remained the payment system PayPal, which saw a small rise in the number of phishing emails (23.28 per cent on the figure for April 2011).

The full version of the Kaspersky Lab spam activity report for May 2011 is available here.

Written By

For more than 10 years, Mike Lennon has been closely monitoring the threat landscape and analyzing trends in the National Security and enterprise cybersecurity space. In his role at SecurityWeek, he oversees the editorial direction of the publication and is the Director of several leading security industry conferences around the world.

More from

Latest News

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Virtual Event: Threat Detection and Incident Response Summit
Wednesday, May 24, 2023

SecurityWeek’s Threat Detection and Incident Response Summit brings together security practitioners from around the world to share war stories on breaches, APT attacks and threat intelligence.

Register

Virtual Event: CISO Forum Virtual Summit
June 13-14, 2023

Securityweek’s CISO Forum will address issues and challenges that are top of mind for today’s security leaders and what the future looks like as chief defenders of the enterprise.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Ransomware Alerts Ransomware Alerts

Cybercrime

Cyber Insights 2023 | Ransomware

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

February 2, 2023
Comodo Forums Hacked via Recently Disclosed vBulletin Vulnerability

Cybercrime

Comodo Forums Hacked via Recently Disclosed vBulletin Vulnerability

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

October 1, 2019
Stop, Collaborate and Listen: Disrupting Cybercrime Networks Requires Private-Public Cooperation

Cybercrime

Stop, Collaborate and Listen: Disrupting Cybercrime Networks Requires Private-Public Cooperation

No one combatting cybercrime knows everything, but everyone in the battle has some intelligence to contribute to the larger knowledge base.

February 1, 2023
Microsoft’s Verified Publisher Status Abused in Email Theft Campaign

Cloud Security

Microsoft’s Verified Publisher Status Abused in Email Theft Campaign

Microsoft and Proofpoint are warning organizations that use cloud services about a recent consent phishing attack that abused Microsoft’s ‘verified publisher’ status.

January 31, 2023
Microsoft OneNote Abuse for Malware Delivery Surges

Malware & Threats

Microsoft OneNote Abuse for Malware Delivery Surges

Threat actors are increasingly abusing Microsoft OneNote documents to deliver malware in both targeted and spray-and-pray campaigns.

February 10, 2023
Fortinet Ships Emergency Patch for Already-Exploited VPN Flaw

Application Security

Fortinet Ships Emergency Patch for Already-Exploited VPN Flaw

Fortinet on Monday issued an emergency patch to cover a severe vulnerability in its FortiOS SSL-VPN product, warning that hackers have already exploited the...

December 12, 2022
VMWare Exploited in Ransomware Attacks VMWare Exploited in Ransomware Attacks

Malware & Threats

VMware ESXi Servers Targeted in Ransomware Attack via Old Vulnerability

Unpatched and unprotected VMware ESXi servers worldwide have been targeted in a ransomware attack exploiting a vulnerability patched in 2021.

February 6, 2023
Recently Patched IBM Aspera Faspex Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild

Malware & Threats

Recently Patched IBM Aspera Faspex Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild

A vulnerability affecting IBM’s Aspera Faspex file transfer solution, tracked as CVE-2022-47986, has been exploited in attacks.

February 15, 2023