IF a new cyber-security report is anything to go by, when the going gets tough, the tough start spamming. And despite Singapore's strong cyber defences, local users are not spared the scourge of unsolicited e-mail.
According the MessageLabs, a unit of security software giant Symantec, the economic recession was the key theme in ploys used by cyber criminals in the first quarter of 2009. 'As credit becomes harder to secure, economic woes have created an uncertain climate for consumers, making them a prime target for spammers, frauds and phishers hoping to cash in,' MessageLabs says in its latest monthly report.
Malicious Internet users are preying on the distressed through unsolicited e-mail touting get-rich quick schemes or access to credit at a time when banks are tightening lending.
The spam level in Singapore surpassed the global average in March, with 85.5 per cent of e-mail scanned by MessageLabs classified as unsolicited. Globally, the figure was 75.7 per cent, an increase of 2.4 percentage points from February. Hong Kong was the world's most spammed city, with spam rising 15.9 per cent in March from a month earlier.
At the other end of the spectrum, Germany and the Netherlands fared better than most Asian countries, with spam levels of 69.9 per cent and 68.8 per cent respectively. Australia had a spam rate of 86.4 per cent and China - widely seen as a major source of unsolicited e-mail - had a spam level of 88.4 per cent.
When it comes to nabbing e-mail-borne computer viruses, Singapore ranked better than most countries. MessageLab's scanning system showed that one in every 534.3 e-mail messages transmitted here in March contained malware.
Worldwide, the instance of virus-laden e-mail is double that at one in every 284.6 messages. In the US, the latest figure is one in 454.7 messages, while the UK is worst affected, at one in 170.5. At the other end of the scale, the figure is one in 853.3 messages in Australia, while Japan is among the safest places, with just one in every 1,427.7 messages carrying a virus.
Besides ballooning spam, another worrying trend was a spike in malicious websites last month. According to MessageLabs, the number of portals blocked for hosting malware tripled in March.
On a daily basis, the company intercepted close to 3,000 harmful sites, containing everything from keystroke loggers to adware.
'Having focused on e-mail in the latter half of 2008 and early 2009, cyber criminals are now varying their strategies and turning to Web-related tactics so as not to become too predictable,' says MessageLabs senior analyst Paul Wood.
The spike in malicious sites is attributed to the resurgence of an exploit technique that injects malicious programming script into an image on a Website. This attack takes advantage of a flaw in older Web browsers that append the injected script to the end of the image's binary code.
Portals that host such infections include free image-sharing sites and some popular social networking and file-hosting sites that allow users to upload and share pictures.
'Malicious links sent through e-mail and hosted on infected or compromised websites represent a growing area of risk for businesses as many attacks are designed to steal personal data and confidential information simply when users visit an infected site,' MessageLabs warns.
