Anti-Spam Firm eleven Releases February Email Security Report

German email security firm eleven has released their Feburary 2011 “E-Mail Security ‎Report”, indicating a short-lived turn down in spam-ware toward the end of the year, the ‎striking re-establishment of botnet infrastructures and an increase of virus outbreaks.‎

Wide fluctuations in spam volumes that took place in December and January were ‎unprecedented in magnitude since 2003. Spam volumes had decreased by 80 percent on ‎December 25, and remained so up-to January 10. Then they increased six-times, reaching ‎their previous levels by January 11. The quantum of relatively new virus infections ‎reportedly increased simultaneously.‎

According to ‘eleven’ the above coincidence, indicated that spam and virus outbreaks are ‎related, and the decrease could well have been a planned outcome.‎ Spammers appear to have taken advantage of the time between the years – traditionally ‎seen as a lesser important period for spamming – to reconstruct spamming botnet ‎infrastructures, protect them again against external interventions, and to replace their lost ‎volume capacities. The above was accomplished by sending out bulk quantities of new ‎viruses with the main objective of infecting numerous computers as could be possible.‎

The dip was also driven by the closing down of several botnets ahead of the holidays, as ‎well as the extinction of spamit.com, a ‘spamming service’ provider.‎ USA continues to be the largest source of spam, producing almost 11 percent of the ‎world’s overall spam volume. Brazil came second, with 8 percent, and India and Russia ‎shared third place with 7 percent each. Germany dipped from 6 percent as of November ‎‎2010 to 4 percent as per the report.‎