Spam Jumps in January, Study Says
Graphic: Diego AguirreGlobal Internet spam levels rose 4.9 per cent in January this year since December 2008 to 74.6 per cent, according to the MessageLabs Intelligence Report. This is the proportion of e-mail that was blocked as spam by the tech firm's e-mail protect services.
Levels were close to those experienced before Internet service provider McColo was taken down in November 2008, said MessageLabs, which is now part of Symantec. MessageLabs Intelligence is a source of data and analysis for messaging security issues, trends and statistics.
Among the top 10 botnets responsible for distributing spam, Mega-D (Ozdoc) had the highest throughput in January, sending more than 26 million spam e-mails per minute.
Cutwail (Pandex) remains the largest botnet with more than one million active IPs this month. Among the top 10 are some new players, including Xarvester, Donbot and Waledac.
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