My Spam analysis for July 13 - 19, 2009
This is the latest entry in my weekly series about classifications of spam, according to my custom filter rules used by MailWasher Pro. The categories are shown on the "Statistics" page > "Junk Mail," as a pie chart, based on my custom filters and blacklist. The amount of email flagged as spam is shown on the "Summary" page of Statistics.
The volume of spam coming to my various honeypots and user accounts has increased markedly this week, after last week's decrease. This suggests to me that some of the Botnet owners have once again restored their Control and Command servers. This is a cat and mouse game, with criminals leasing servers for use a Botnet controllers and authorities or upstream providers shutting them down.
The classifications of spam in my analysis can help you adjust your email filters according to what is most common, on a weekly basis. Most of the spam this week was for the fake Canadian Pharmacy, which sells illicit and counterfeit pharmaceuticals like Viagra, and is hosted on Botnetted PCs. Next, was male enhancement scams, weight loss ripoffs, casinos and some Nigerian 419 scams.
See my extended comments for this week's breakdown of spam by category, for July 13 - 19, 2009 and the latest additions to my custom MailWasher Pro filters
MailWasher Pro spam category breakdown for July 13 - 19, 2009. Spam amounted to 21% of my incoming email this week. This represents a 9% increase from last week. Thursday July 16 was the worst day for spam.
"Other filters": (See my MWP Filters page) | 16.98% |
---|---|
Canadian Pharmacy spam: | 15.09% |
Male Enhancement Patches, etc: | 11.32% |
Known Spam Domains (a great filter!): | 9.43% |
Viagra spam: | 9.43% |
Weight Loss Scams (e.g. Acai Berry) | 7.55% |
Known X-Mailer Spam: | 7.55% |
Casino spam: | 5.66% |
Counterfeit Watches: | 5.66% |
Nigerian 419 Scams: | 3.77% |
Subject is: RE: or FWD: | 3.77% |
Blacklisted Domains/Senders (e.g: kef+diz@+): | 3.77% |
The latest weekly additions to my custom MailWasher Pro filters were the Watches, Stud Tips and Breast enlargement filters. Everything else is working as it should. My spam filters are very effective, especially the Canadian Pharmacy spam filters. If you're not already using MailWasher Pro to filter out spam, read on...
MailWasher Pro intercepts POP3 and IMAP email before you download it to your desktop email client (e.g: Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail) and scans it for threats or spam content, then either manually or automatically deletes any messages matching your pre-determined criteria and custom filters. It is my primary line of defense against incoming spam, scams, phishing and exploit attacks. If you are not already using this fine anti-spam tool I invite to to read about it on my MailWasher Pro web page. You can download the latest version and try it for free for a month. Registration is only required once, for the life of the program.
To protect your computer from web pages rigged with exploit codes, malware in email attachments, dangerous links to hostile web pages, JavaScript redirects, Phishing scams, or router DNS attack codes, I recommend Trend Micro Internet Security. It has strong realtime monitoring modules that stop rootkits and spam Trojans from installing themselves into your operating system. Also known as PC-cillin, it is very frequently updated as new and altered malware definitions become available and it checks for web based threats and new malware definitions by searching secure online servers owned by Trend Micro. This is referred to as "in-the-cloud" security.
All of the spam and scams targeting my accounts were either automatically deleted by my custom MailWasher Pro spam filters, or if they made it through, was reported to SpamCop, of which I am a reporting member, and manually deleted. MailWasher Pro is able to forward messages marked as spam to SpamCop, which then sends a confirmation email to you, containing a link. You must click on the enclosed reporting link and open it in your browser, then manually submit your report. This is how SpamCop wants it done.
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