Virus levels double in August

Viruses on rise but still only account for small amount of email

Virus levels have doubled and account of 1.02 per cent of total emails sent, according to a survey conducted in August by SoftScan .

Some 89 per cent of all viruses stopped were classified as phishing attempts. The percentage of phishing emails detected has increased dramatically in the last few months, but SoftScan believes this is as a result of improved or additional detection by anti-virus scanners rather than any real increase in the number of phishing emails distributed.

Diego d'Ambra, chief technical officer at SoftScan said: 'We have seen several minor outbreaks of Worm.Stration variants during August, but nothing major and virus activity generally continues to follow the trend of remaining low key.

'Recent enhancements and developments by the anti-virus industry to their scanners has meant an increase in detecting phishing emails as malware, as opposed to spam. This gives the impression that phishing has risen significantly, but in actual fact is really due to the re-classification from spam to malware.'

Spam remains very high at 87.7 per cent, but this is expected to reduce by a few
per cent over the coming days as the traditional summer holiday season comes
to a close. Then the increase in legitimate business email will push the
percentage back down to its more regular level of 85 per cent.

What do you think? Email us at [email protected]