U.S., Brazil and India retained their positions as the top 3 spam-sending countries, a trend consistent since three months. Both U.S. and Brazil posted an increase in their spam numbers, while India has posted a decline.
Spam-Sending Countries
Rank Country Percentage
1 United States 24.93%
2 India 12.55%
3 Brazil 12.00%
4 United Kingdom 11.30%
5 Germany 8.66%
6 Vietnam 7.71%
7 France 6.17%
8 Republic of Korea 6.09%
9 Italy 5.46%
10 Romania 5.13%
Recognizing that attacks are now carried out using three primary vectors - email, Web, and file - researchers have drawn on some of the highlights from the past month.
HSBC has become the top phishing target this month via email. It leaped from the bottom of the list to the top spot in July, while PayPal remained part of the top 3 phishing targets. A new entrant in the top 10 list is ABN Amro Bank.
Top 10 Phishing Targets
Rank Via Email Via Site Spoofing
1 HSBC PayPal
2 PayPal eBay
3 Banco de Bradesco Yahoo!
4 World of Warcraft HSBC
5 Bank of America Bank of America
6 Amazon Banco de Bradesco
7 Chase Bank Halifax Bank
8 ANZ World of Warcraft
9 Halifax Bank Chase Bank
10 Standard Bank of South Africa Amazon
"User account information and credit card credentials reap good profits for cybercriminals. As such, cybercriminals continued to leverage on the widespread use of social networking sites, search engines, and redirectors this July," said Amit Nath Country Manager India and SAARC Trend Micro.
This month, ATM malware, botnets and online gaming related threats were particularly noteworthy, says TrendLabs Researchers. The notorious KOOBFACE botnet also launched another notable attack in July using the old technique of sending out direct messages (DMs) via Facebook.
Two notable ZeuS/ZBOT malware were found in July - one targeting Russian banks and/or Yandex services, the other was TSPY_ZBOT.CQJ, which steals information by inserting malicious code into legitimate banking websites. The malicious code works when the said sites are viewed using Internet Explorer or Firefox. The report also notes that the continued proliferation of online gaming threats has made the gaming sector a consistent cybercriminal target. This is particularly true in China where online gaming is very popular and where cybercriminals have created XWM, the popular Chinese Trojan kit.
