Guardian (25th January, 2012) - CYBER CRIME: MASS SPAM MESSAGES DECLINE AS TARGETED ATTACKS INCREASE
The Cisco yearly security report has revealed a significant drop in spam volume from about 379 billion messages daily to about 124 billion messages between August 2010 and November 2011.
However, the impact on businesses, according to Cisco SIO, which results from traditional mass email-based attacks, declined more than 50 per cent from June 2010 to June 2011, from $ 1billion to $500 million.
According to the report, spam volumes are originating worldwide in the month of September 2011; India had the highest percentage of spam volume (13.9 per cent). Vietnam came in second with 8.0 per cent and the Russian Federation took the third-place spot with 7.8 per cent.
Cisco explained that after the 2010 cybercrime turning point, when spam levels started to decline for the first time, this trend continued throughout 2011, a trend that can be explained mainly by several key botnet takedowns throughout the last two years.
It, however, said that the number of vulnerabilities increased, adding that there were fewer widespread attacks but greater numbers of smaller, more focused attacks.
