Spamalot: 2008 – The Year In Spam

Mmm….SPAM.  There’s actually nothing yummy about it, in fact, it can be down-right annoying.

Now Google is offering us a nostalgic look back on 2008, the Year in Spam.

You see, in November of last year, a large source of the world’s spam, the McColo network, was taken down. Prior to this event, spam levels had been holding relatively steady. When McColo was taken offline, however, spam fell by about 70 percent compared. Spammers, however, are a persistent lot and are recovering in a big way.

While spam is still down overall, it’s important to note its rate of growth. Spam levels are up by 156 percent since Novemberof 2008. As spammers recover, the increased rate of spam growth will likely have total spam volumes back to pre-McColo levels within a few months.

Although McColo received a lot of attention, the highest volume of spam in 2008 actually came on April 23, which was an all-time high spam level for Google Message Security data centers. That day, the average number of spam messages blocked per user was 194. This peak was driven by an unprecedented number of non-delivery receipt (NDR) attacks we saw in April. One customer who was the target of a specific NDR attack said that their users were receiving an average of 100 emails every minute.

As spammers fill the void left by McColo, it’s reasonable to anticipate a decreasing rate of growth as spam reaches November 2008 levels. However, since the November levels weren’t even the peak for the year, and since spammers appear to be quickly recovering, the question remains: Where will spam volume top out in 2009? Will it be near the November 2008 level? the April 2008 level? Or higher?

Looking ahead to the rest of 2009, we expect viruses sent via email and in blended attacks (email and web) to continue to be a serious threat. During the second half of 2008, virus volume increased six-fold from the first half of the year. These spam messages would often try to fool users by mimicking legitimate emails such as package tracking notifications or invoices that included virus attachments. Another popular technique in 2008 was emailing spoofed news alerts with URLs that would link to a website hosting the virus.

We can also expect that viruses and malware will continue to be a key tool and area of focus for spammers to upgrade their platforms. Even though virus attachment volumes have been low so far this year, we expect spammers to work hard to rebuild their networks to replace what was lost in the McColo shutdown.

Of course, the only thing we can really say with certainty about 2009 is that spam and viruses will continue to be unpredictable.

Unpredictable, indeed. By all means, make sure you are protected – and surf carefully.