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Picasa Web Albums is the latest of Google's hosted services to be exploited by spammers. Adobe Flash redirection techniques are also being abused by spammers to host Flash-based .SWF, Shockwave Flash, files that cause Web browsers to re-direct to the spammer's site.

Also in August, spam volumes rose by 160% resulting in an overall three percent increase in spam levels. The sharp rise in spam can be attributed to the aggressiveness of the Srizbi and Cutwail botnets, which both grew by between 20% and 25% in July and August. The profile of the increased spam activity was similar to spam runs seen in July with most spam arriving as short, text-based messages.

However, the increased capacity of the botnets resulted in higher volumes of this spam.

In addition, 64% of emails containing malicious links spoofed virtual greeting cards or fake online postcards, an increase of 51.8% since July.

Other report highlights:

1. Web Security: Analysis of Web security activity shows that 23.9% of all web-based malware intercepted was new in August. MessageLabs also identified an average of 2,980 new websites per day harboring malware and other potentially unwanted programs such as spyware and adware, a decrease of 24.9% since July.

2. Spam: In August 2008, the global ratio of spam in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was 78.2% (1 in 1.28 emails), an increase of 3.12% on the previous month.

3. Viruses: The global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was 1 in 87.6 emails (1.14%), an increase of 0.47% since July. In August, 15.2% of email-borne malware contained links to malicious sites, an increase of 12.2% since July.

4. Phishing: In August, phishing activity fell by 0.36% compared with the previous month. One in 522.7 (0.19%) emails comprised some form of phishing attack. When judged as a proportion of all email-borne threats such as viruses and Trojans, the number of phishing emails has fallen by 65.3% to 16.8% of all email-borne malware threats intercepted in August.


The August 2008 MessageLabs Intelligence Report provides greater detail on all of the trends and figures noted above, as well as more detailed geographical and industry sector trends. The full report is available at: http://www.messagelabs.com/intelligence