Kaspersky reports Malicious Mails targeting Corporate Users in Q2 2013

Kaspersky Lab has revealed the results of its email traffic analysis report for Q2 2013. In the second quarter, the percentage of spam in total email traffic increased by 4.2% from the first quarter of 2013 and came to 70.7%. The percentage of phishing emails in global mail traffic fell by 0.0016% and came to 0.0024%.

Many emails with malicious attachments were addressed to corporate users this past quarter.  Malicious users expect corporate employees to skim over the details, assume the email is legitimate and open the attachment  releasing a malicious program.

However, this past quarter, Kaspersky Lab detected malicious mailings in the form of eCards which are getting distributed with malicious attachments.

Recently, spammers have begun sending out emails with malicious attachments designed to look like automatic delivery failure notifications sent out by servers. The large amount of spyware in malicious spam attachments shows a regrettable trend  malicious users are persistently hunting for personal data, usernames and passwords, including those for online banking and payment systems. Kaspersky Lab recommends that users continue to exercise caution – even when dealing with emails that appear to be legitimate,” said Darya Gudkova, Head of Content Analysis & Research, Kaspersky Lab.

The amount of malicious attachments in the second quarter was 1% lower than in the first, coming to 2.3% of all mail traffic. Among the threats spread by email, the most prevalent families are those designed to steal data to access user accounts (usernames and passwords), particularly for online banking services.

The percentage of phishing emails in total mail traffic during the second quarter this year fell by 0.0016% and came to 0.0024%.