Experts predict surge in spam during festival season
Cyber-security experts foresee nearly 20 per cent spike in spam messages in the run-up to Diwali, as spammers attempt to cash-in on the festival season to clutter inboxes with spams embedded with trojans, Keyloggers and other malware (malicious software).
“During Diwali, we expect to see a sharp rise in spam, with spammers sending promotional and marketing material, and in certain cases pushing malware payloads. Clicking on these messages or downloading attachments that come with the mails could set-off viruses, offering hackers access to personal details including confidential bank account or credit card information,” said Mr Shantanu Ghosh, Vice-President (India Product Operations), Symantec Software, whose latest report has ranked India sixth in the list of top spam originating countries.
Spam — junk or unsolicited e-mails sent by a third party — are annoying to recipients and administrators, and cause loss of service or degradation in performance of network resources and e-mail gateways. But more importantly, spam poses a serious IT security risk as it can be used to deliver trojans, viruses, and phishing attempts.
