Spam Trends in 2009: McAfee's Report

Our website has already presented you the whole list of predictions related to spam in 2009. You should already know that a large part of spam is going to be related to the global economic crisis. Cyber-criminals are expected to continue their phishing attacks on social networking sites in a more professional way. Malicious emails will include an increasing proportion of attachments or web links to non-program (non-EXE) files. And, finally, spam volume is expected to increase slightly more than 95% during 2009, as botnets continue to grow and spread malware.

However, that's not all of what security experts are waiting for in the field of spam. McAfee Inc. has recently released its 2009 January Spam Report in which security experts not only present the most important spam issues in 2008, but also give an overview for 2009. Therefore, in addition to what has already been said in my article Spam Predictions and Trends for 2009, I would like to present you the most important things indicated by McAfee's experts.

First of all, it is expected that free web-hosting and blogging services will be increasingly attacked by spammers. According to McAfee's experts "By allowing people to create a public website without the authentication necessary to purchase domain name websites like Geocities, Blogspot and Live facilitate a spammer's ability to get their message across with a minimal expenditure of resources."

It is also predicted that cyber-criminals will increasingly be using botnets that spread into corporate networks and financial data centers. That is how spammers will gather important personal information that could be later used for blackmail or sold on the underground market.

"Legitimate" home business scams are also going to attack our inboxes more often than we would like this to happen. Such kind of scam usually involves "either a pay up front and Do-It-Yourself kit, or a pay-to-play shell game of training and certification." - McAfee's report states.

Spammers are also going to abuse free email services more often and more severely than they used to do before. As a result, the need for Domain Keys Identification Mail (DKIM), PGP key signing and secondary authentication mechanisms will become more important to a basic business security model.

Finally, McColo, a network hosting provider that had a wide range of cybercriminal activity emanating from its networks, is likely to be replaced by hosting companies in countries that are powerful enough to fill this market and offer services that would replace the disrupted command and control centers formerly hosted by McColo.