Spam Message Size Lowest on Record

The average size of spam messages has dropped to its lowest level on record in recent weeks. Unfortunately this has not translated to any letup in bandwidth wastage for networks suffering under a spam deluge. Although message size is down, the number of spam messages being sent has continued to rise, and in fact it has risen steadily since the beginning of the year.

Spammers have largely turned away from using techniques associated with larger sized messages. Usage of images, well-made and sophisticated HTML messages, or tomes of garbage text has, at least for the moment, declined considerably.

Several of the major Spam botnets are churning out huge amounts of very simple text messages, containing little more than an URL with a sentence or two which hints at the subject matter. The main focus for the major botnets at the moment is male enlargement, replica watches and, to a lesser degree, fake diplomas.

This first two examples below are typical of what is coming from the botnet we've identified as Hacktool.spammer. The other two examples we believe to hail from the Srizbi botnet. The trend is largely the same for the other major botnets, such as Mega-D and Rustock.

We publish botnet data each week on our TRACE Spam Statistics page