The report, authored by leading Kaspersky Lab analysts, surveys the trends of 2006 and looks at what 2007 may bring.
Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, announces the publication of its annual report on malware and spam evolution. The report, authored by leading Kaspersky Lab analysts, surveys the trends of 2006 and looks at what 2007 may bring.
Malware Evolution: 2006 provides an overview of the most important incidents in the malware world, highlights the main trends, and examines how the situation will evolve. Particular stress is laid on the continuing increase in the number of Trojan programs, particularly those designed to steal online gaming account data; the first viruses and worms for MacOS; and Trojans for J2ME, which are designed to steal funds from mobile user accounts.
The number of new malicious programs was up 41% on 2005. As for the future evolution of malicious programs, Kaspersky Lab virus analysts believe that virus writers and spammers will work ever more closely together; the number of Trojans will continue to increase; and that virus writers will be on the lookout for exploitable vulnerabilities in Vista.
Data provided by the Kaspersky Spam Lab shows that in 2006, between 70% and 80% of mail traffic on the Russian Internet was spam. The majority of spam sent to Russian users originates in Russia, the U.S.A. and China. Spammers actively used graphics in order to evade spam filters. They are also continued to send spam masquerading as personal correspondence in order to get the recipient to read the whole message and then act as the spammers intended, whether by calling a designated number or clicking on a link. The report on spam evolution also highlights how mass mailings differ from each other according to language: most Russian language spam offers education and training, and a wide range of goods ranging from busts of the Russian president to a device which will ‘translate’ a dog’s bark. English language spam, on the other hand, tends to focus on advertising for stocks and shares, Viagra and cheap software.
The report also notes that spam became increasingly criminalized in 2006, with spammers actively using SMS to spread spam. The company’s analysts believe that technologies currently in use will continue to evolve in 2007, together with further development of graphical spam, and increased criminalization of mass mailings.
Executive summaries for Malware Evolution: 2006 and Spam Evolution: 2006 are available on www.kaspersky.com. The full text of the annual report is available on www.viruslist.com.
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