India Among Top 10 Countries Which Increased Spam Traffic


BANGALORE: India was one of the top ten spam sources in the world in February accounting 3.4 percent of the spams circulated globally. The country is placed at sixth place while highest number of spams came from China accounting for 23 percent, U.S. with 19.1 percent and finally South Korea with 12.8 percent. Sources said that the ratio of the spam on the email traffic was up by 70 percent in February, thanks to Valentine’s Day.

According to a report, social networking sites where the most targeted and then came the email services and e-pay websites putting them on the second and third target. Spammers took advantage of Valentine’s Day to spam people and allegedly targeted woman who sent e-cards and other online gifts to make friends in the run up to14 February.

The Valentine’s Day spam contained trojans, which installed 2 malicious programs on a computer, in which one was for stealing all the document files from the computer and the other one carried out DDoS- distributed-denial-of-service where the website or the computer was made unavailable for the users. And when the users responded to the mail, their machine became part of the botnet, the network of computers which communicate with each other without the user’s knowledge, and helps in spreading malware and DDoS attacks.

In addition with to the trojans the malicious spam had ransomware, where the spam blocks the computer and does not allow the functioning unless the ransom is paid. One of the major spamming which had malicious programs was done through explicit photos, in which one of them had Andromeda BackDoor, a spam which allows a computer to be controlled secretly and is widely used by cybercriminals. There were spams in the form of Facebook notifications too.

“Spammers are becoming more intelligent in masking their messages under the garb of offering something genuine to the recipients—be it Valentine’s Day discount or news about Ukraine, etc. And once unsuspecting users have clicked or downloaded the email attachment, Trojans are downloaded without the user’s knowledge, which are capable of stealing data or even holding the data at ransom (encrypting the data and demanding money to decrypt the data, like CryptoLocker),” said Altaf Halde, Managing Director, Kaspersky Lab—South Asia, reports Livemint

“Internet users in India should start taking their digital security seriously. With the number of threat vectors increasing alarmingly along with the rise of cybercriminal activities, it is imperative that Internet users in India protect themselves with genuine Internet security or anti-virus software. The government should initiate spam laws that will deter spammers from making India their safe havens,” he added.

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