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Spammers using link-shortening for higher volume - Symantec report
24 July 2010 , Written by Dhruv Tanwar
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Symantec Corp. has published its July 2010 MessageLabs Intelligence Report. Its analysis reveals that the percentage of spam containing shortened hyperlinks has increased significantly over the last year.

Spam containing shortened hyperlinks hit a one day peak of 18 percent, or 23.4 billion spam emails on April 30, 2010, doubling last year’s peak levels when spam with shortened hyperlinks accounted for 9.3 percent of spam, more than 10 billion spam emails, on July 28, 2009.

spam_1In addition to higher peak levels, average daily values also show a significant increase in use of the tactic. In the second quarter of 2009 there was only a single day where when shortened hyperlinks appeared in more than one in 200 of spam messages. In the second quarter of 2010 there were 43 days when at least 1 in 200 spam messages contained shortened hyperlinks and 10 days where at least 5% of all spam contained these links. Further analysis of spam containing shortened URLs revealed that the Storm botnet, which returned to the threat landscape in May 2010, is responsible for the greatest volume of botnet spam containing short hyperlinks, accounting for 11.8 percent of all spam containing shortened hyperlinks.

“As far as spammers are concerned, any tactics that make it harder to block their spam emails are going to be exploited,” said Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Symantec Hosted Services. “When spammers include a shortened URL in spam messages, these shortened hyperlinks contain reputable and legitimate domains, making it harder for traditional anti-spam filters to identify the messages as spam based on the reputation of the domains found in the spam emails.”

MessageLabs Intelligence found that on average one website visit is generated for every 74,000 spam emails containing a shortened URL link. The most frequently visited shortened links from spam received more than 63,000 website visits.

Earlier this month, MessageLabs Intelligence reported on the increased risk from web threats. An analysis of blocked domains in 2010 shows that almost 90 percent of malicious websites were legitimate and had been compromised by malware without their owners’ knowledge, Symantec's found.

Geographical Trends:
  • Spam levels in Luxembourg rose to 2.4 percentage points to 93.5 percent in July positioning it as the most spammed country.
  • In the US, 89.8 percent of email was spam and 88.1 percent in Canada. Spam levels in the UK were 87.8 percent.
  • In the Netherlands, spam accounted for 90.4 percent of email traffic, while spam levels reached 88.6 percent in Australia and 89.5 percent in Germany and 91.8 percent in Denmark.
  • Spam levels in Hong Kong reached 90.6 percent and 86.7 percent in Singapore. Spam levels in Japan were at 86.2 percent and 92.1 percent in China.
  • Virus activity in Taiwan was 1 in 50.0 emails, keeping it as the most targeted for email-borne malware in July.  
  • Virus levels for the US were 1 in 520.1 and 1 in 430.8 for Canada. In Germany, virus levels were 1 in 487.8, 1 in 767.7 for the Netherlands, 1 in 516.3 for Australia, 1 in 398.9 for Hong Kong, 1 in 874.5 for Japan and 1 in 696.1 for Singapore.
  • New Zealand became the most targeted for phishing attacks in July with 1 in 111.2 emails comprising a phishing attack.

Vertical Trends:
  • In June, the most spammed industry sector with a spam rate of 92.6 percent remained the Engineering sector.
  • Spam levels for the Education sector were 89.1 percent, 89.0 percent for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector, 89.6 percent for IT Services, 89.9 percent for Retail, 87.3 percent for Public Sector and 87.4 percent for Finance.
  • In July, the Engineering Sector became the most targeted industry for malware with 1 in 112.0 emails being blocked as malicious.
  • Virus levels for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector were 1 in 449.0, 1 in 377.5 for the IT Services sector, 1 in 706.1 for Retail, 1 in 227.3 for Education and 1 in 256.2 for Finance.
 

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