E-mail spam drops by half, search malware on the rise

Attackers are making a shift from using e-mail spam to more aggressively targeting the Internet, according to Barracuda Network.

E-mail spam dropped by half during 2010, while search engine malware doubled and the Twitter crime Rate increased 20 percent, signifying a concentrated focus on the more lucrative social networks and search engines as attack vectors.

“Attackers focus on where they can get the most eyeballs and profit, and today that means social networks and search engines,” said Dr. Paul Judge, chief research officer at Barracuda Networks. “As a community we often point to the need for user education as the missing component; however, the levels of social engineering involved in today’s attacks suggest that we must continue to elevate our technological approaches. The research community must continue to build innovative defenses and the industry must make efforts to increase the deployment rates of those defenses.”

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