Kaspersky report percentage of phishing emails grew 3X in 2014 | Email Security

Posted by Geraldine Hunt on Sun, Feb 15th, 2015

According to a recent Kaspersky report, email security is greatly threatened as the percentage of phishing emails in 2014 grew threefold  from the previous year and accounted for 0.0071% of all email traffic. Their  IT Security Risks survey 2014  reported that the percentage of spam in total email traffic during the first quarter 2014  year came to 66.34%, down 6.42 percentage points from the previous quarter.

In Q2 2014, Kaspersky Lab's antivirus solutions successfully blocked 528,799,591 malware attacks on user computers. In these incidents, a total of 114,984,065 unique malicious and potentially unwanted objects were detected. SpamTitan includes as standard both Kaspersky AV and Clam AV for double anti virus protection..

Spammers usually prompt the user to open a malicious attachment or follow a link which initiates a file download to the hard drive. According to the report, the majority of phishing attacks were targeted towards Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. China continues to be first in the list of spam generating countries followed by the US and South Korea, while the three countries combined accounted for than half of all global spam.

The Top Ten Malicious attachments in email

Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen is still  the most popular malicious program spread by email in the first quarter of the year. This virus  is designed to look like an HTML page used as a registration form for online banking services. It is used by phishers to steal financial information.

The top ten list is as follows:

1. Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen (steals financial information)
2. Net-Worm.Win32.Aspxor.app (spreads spam to infect and collect data)
3. Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.gt (used to harvest email addresses)
4. Trojan.PSW.Win32.Fareit.amzb (steals user logins and passwords, launch DDoS attacks and download and run random software)
5. Trojan.Win32.Bublik.bwbx (downloads other malware)
6. Backdoor.Win32.Androm.bngy (allows cybercriminals to secretly control a compromised computer)
7. Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Dofoil.rqb (similar activities to #2)
8. Trojan-PSW.Win32.Fareit.anaq (similar activities to #4)
9. Email-Worm.Win32.Mydoom.I (worms automatically spread to other PCs)
10. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.rdhe (steals confidential user information. It can also install CryptoLocker)

Security Challenges faced by SMBs:

• Inadequate security awareness among employee
• No Dedicated IT security professional
• Limited IT security budget
• Lack of IT security policies

According to the FBI, worldwide cybercriminals earn over $100 billion per year through their increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. SMBs are frequently more exposed to risk from cybercriminals than larger companies. Despite the widespread dangers of phishing attacks, a simple step like installing a powerful security solution to protect the company’s network will help prevent even the most inexperienced users from being scammed when conducting transactions online. Lack of proactive security measures can cost companies financially through the loss of data & system downtime!

Scammers use phishing scams to trick unsuspecting email and web users into handing over personal information. The information they are looking to trick you out of is very varied and can include various pieces of banking details, your social security number and social media passwords all of which can be very valuable to fraudsters and allows them free reign on both your finances and personal identity.

In extracting this personal information scammers will always have a credible excuse for requiring you to handover this information, such as:

• Upgrading security levels
• Essential System maintenance
• Verifying your account details
• Protecting you from fraud
• Offering you a refund for a fee or a bill paid or overpaid

The main goal of most malicious programs distributed via mail is to steal confidential data. The majority of phishing attacks targeted email accounts. Users are often lax when it comes to their email accounts: many of them use simple logins and passwords.

SpamTitan includes Kaspersky & Clam AV as standard

SpamTitan anti spam is used by IT professionals in 120 countries worldwide. SpamTitan blocks over 99.97% of spam with  0% false positives and includes dual anti-virus protection via Kaspersky AV and Clam AV. SpamTitan also includes as standard, a powerful anti phishing module and importantly for already stretched IT budgets it is competitively priced for business customers.

• SpamTitan spam catch rate  99.97%+
• Low false positive rate
• Dual anti-virus protection (Kaspersky and Clam A.V.)
• Includes Powerful anti-phishing module
• Multilayered anti spam analysis. This includes Sender Policy Framework, SURBL's, RBL's Bayesian analysis and more.
• Inbound and Outbound scanning
• Content Control that can be managed on administrator or user level
• Competitively priced for business customers
• Multiple deployment options including on premises and cloud.