Spam and Phishing in Q1: New Domains Revitalise Old Spam

LONDON, May 13, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

The new range of top level domains, launched in January 2015 and intended for use by relevant communities and organisations, has proved irresistible to spammers according to Kaspersky Lab's Q1 2015 analysis of the spam and phishing threats landscape. For many, the new domains represent an excellent tool for promoting unwanted or illegitimate advertising campaigns. 

Spam and phishing statistics: 

• The proportion of spam in email traffic according to the figures for the first quarter of 2015 was 59.2 per cent, which is 6 percentage points lower than in the previous quarter.
• The USA retained its position as the biggest source of spam, sending 14.5 per cent of unwanted mail.
• Kaspersky Lab products recorded 50,077,057 instances that triggered the "Anti-phishing" system. This was 1 million more times than in the previous quarter.
• Phishing against customers of financial organisations accounted for 37.06 per cent of all registered incidents.

New domain scams 

The new generic top-level domain (gTLD) registration program gives organisations the opportunity to choose a domain zone that is consistent with their activities and the theme of their sites. For example, job websites can now use a .work domain and scientific websites could choose a .science domain etc. The business opportunities provided by the new gTLD program were enthusiastically endorsed by the Internet community and the active registration of new domain names is ongoing.

Spammers and cybercriminals have also been quick to react to the trend. As a result of their activities, new domain zones almost immediately became an arena for the large-scale distribution of advertising spam, phishing and malicious emails.

According to Kaspersky Lab's email traffic observations; there was a considerable increase in the number of new domains that sent out spam content in Q1 2015.

Emails sent from the work domains generally contained offers to carry out various types of work including household maintenance, construction or equipment installation. On the other hand, many of the messages from the .science domains were advertising schools that offer distance learning, colleges to train nurses, criminal lawyers and other professionals.

Q1's spam traffic also featured many emails sent from colour domains such as pink, red, or black. These were often used to advertise Asian dating sites.

"When looking at Q1 in general and the type of spam on the new domains, insurance was one of the hottest topics in terms of the number of messages and the number of changing domains in mass mailings. This covers all types of insurance - life, health, property, cars, animals, and funeral insurance." said Tatyana Shcherbakova, Senior Spam Analyst at Kaspersky Lab.

To learn more about spam and phishing operations in Q1 2015, please read the blog post available at Securelist.com.

About Kaspersky Lab 

Kaspersky Lab is the world's largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is ranked among the world's top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users*. Throughout its more than 17-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 400 million users worldwide. Learn more at  http://www.kaspersky.co.uk.

* The company was rated fourth in the IDC rating Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor, 2013. The rating was published in the IDC report "Worldwide Endpoint Security 2014-2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #250210, August 2014). The report ranked software vendors according to earnings from sales of endpoint security solutions in 2013.

Editorial contact:

Berkeley PR

Lauren White

kasperskylab@berkeleypr.co.uk

Telephone: +44(0)118-909-0909

1650 Arlington Business Park

RG7 4SA, Reading

Kaspersky Lab UK

Stephanie Fergusson

Stephanie.Fergusson@kasperskylab.co.uk

Telephone: +44(0)7714107292

2 Kingdom Street

W2 6BD, London