Tag: messagelabs
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41% of spam sent via Rustock botnet
Botnet spam back after short summer break. In its latest intelligence report, security firm MessageLabs reports that 41% of all spam is being sent through the Rustock botnet, an increase of 9% since April. The botnet sends an estimated 32 million spam emails per minute. Interestingly, the number of bots controlled by Rustock’s botherders has…
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Botnets becoming more robust
Zeus botnet used Amazon’s in-the-cloud service to control bots. New reports by MessageLabs and McAfee show that botherders have learned a lesson following the take-down of McColo in November last year . McColo was a rogue ISP that was taken down after security researchers gathered evidence of suspicious activities on the provider’s network, with the…
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URL shorteners experience surge of popularity among spammers
More than 2.2% of spam contains shortened URLs. URL shortening services have proven recently to be popular not just among microbloggers in need of shorter URLs, but also among spammers attempting to disguise the websites they are spamming. According to email filtering service MessageLabs , well over 2 per cent of current spam contains a…
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MessageLabs acquired by Symantec
Acquisition deal valued at $695m. Security industry heavyweight Symantec has announced a definitive agreement to acquire software-as-a-service security specialist MessageLabs . According to the terms of the agreement, Symantec will pay a purchase price of approximately $695 million in cash (which will be split into roughly £310 million sterling and $154 million USD). MessageLabs grew…
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The sound of spam
Firm reports 15 million MP3 spams in October. Last month saw pump-and-dump spammers try out yet another file type for getting their message across to the gullible: MP3 audio files. As the success of pump-and-dump scams relies on victims investing in shares, getting the name of a particular company lodged in recipients’ minds is the…
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MessageLabs may be next takeover target
Managed services provider thought ripe for acquisition. Managed security specialist MessageLabs has been labelled a likely candidate for takeover by one of the industry giants, in a report by market and merger experts at the Financial Times . In the wake of the acquisition of rival firm Postini by web behemoth Google , MessageLabs has…
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Spam barrages take down filters, networks
Report shows increase in spam bombardment attacks. MessageLabs ‘ monthly report on the latest trends in spam has warned of an alarming rise in ‘spam spikes’, targeted attacks which use high volumes of spam directed at a single company in an attempt to overwhelm gateway spam filters. The aim of the attack is to cause…