On May 1, Commtouch released its quarterly Internet Threats Trend Report for the first quarter of 2013. It is a special report: for the first time the previously separate Commtouch Internet Threat Trend Report and the eleven E-Mail Security Report have been merged – providing a more comprehensive view of Internet-based threats and focusing on a wide range of topics: email security, Web security, mobile security, and malware. The new report will be published quarterly and highlight the most important trends and biggest threats to Internet security.
Spam and malware levels rise
The main focus of the first edition is email security. For good reasons: email-borne threats grew dramatically in the first quarter of this year. The most unusual fact: unlike in previous years, when spam and malware email spikes succeeded each other, this time levels of all major categories of unwanted and dangerous emails increased at the same time. Spam volumes almost doubled, increasing by 98.0 percent compared to the end of the previous quarter. The increase was 36.5 percent in March alone, compared to March of 2012 spam levels were 47.7 percent higher. This also led to a higher share of spam among the entire email volume.