In March the global ratio of spam in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was 90.7 percent globally (1 in 1.10 emails), an increase of 1.5 percentage points since February. In Australia spam emails represented 90.1 percent of the total.
The global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was one in 358.3 emails (0.28 percent) in March, an decrease of 0.05 percentage points since February. In March 16.8 percent of email-borne malware contained links to malicious websites, a decrease of 13.7 percentage points since February.
Phishing activity for March was 1 in 513.7 emails (0.19 percent) a decrease of 0.02 percentage points since February. When judged as a proportion of all email-borne threats such as viruses and Trojans, the proportion of phishing emails had increased by 8.4 percentage points to 64.6 percent of all email-borne threats.
Analysis of web security activity shows that 14.9 percent of all web-based malware intercepted was new in March, an increase of 1.6 percentage points since February. MessageLabs Intelligence also identified an average of 1,919 new websites per day harbouring malware and other potentially unwanted programs such as spyware and adware, a decrease of 61.6 percent since February.
Geographical Trends:
- Spam levels in Hungary rose to 95.7 percent in March positioning it as the most spammed country.
- In the US, 91.1 percent of email was spam and 89.5 percent in Canada. Spam levels in the UK rose to 90.1 percent.
- In the Netherlands, spam accounted for 93.0 percent, while spam levels reached 90.1 percent in Australia and remained at 91.3 percent in Germany.
- Spam levels in Hong Kong reached 92.0 percent and spam levels in Japan were at 87.5 percent.
- Virus activity in Taiwan was 1 in 90.9 emails, making it the most targeted country for email-borne malware in March.
- Virus levels for the US were 1 in 551.4 and 1 in 492.8 for Canada. In Germany, virus levels were 1 in 462.0, 1 in 834.7 for the Netherlands, 1 in 351.6 for Australia, 1 in 505.5 for Hong Kong, 1 in 1063.3 for Japan and 1 in 504.1 for Singapore.
- UK was the most active country for phishing attacks in March with 1 in 254.8 emails.
Industry Trends:
- In March, the most spammed industry sector with a spam rate of 94.7 percent was the Engineering sector.
- Spam levels for the Education sector were 91.9 percent, 91.1 percent for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector, 91.6 percent for IT Services, 91.8 percent for Retail, 89.1 percent for Public Sector and 89.5 percent for Finance.
- In March, the Public Sector remained the most targeted industry for malware with 1 in 77.1 emails being blocked as malicious.
- Virus levels for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector were 1 in 642.9, 1 in 510.9 for the IT Services sector, 1 in 728.6 for Retail, 1 in 189.1 for Education and 1 in 301.8 for Finance.
