![\"danger-internet](\"http:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/danger-internet-1.jpg\")
You know, we\u2019ve heard so much over the past two years about the dangerous new onslaught of malware-ridden spam that was just around the corner, we failed to actually notice that we\u2019ve taken the corner and been driving for awhile now. Threats of black hat spam<\/a> have got some of use freaked out by the very scientific (and scary) use of data science methods to create entirely believable personas online. Blackhole 2.0<\/a> hit the ground running, a nasty little frontend for anyone who wants to mess up your day by dumping payloads that would shame an African elephant. Botnets like Zeus and Cutwail are alive and well<\/a> and wreaking mayhem at a computer near you. And the rise of social media spam<\/a> and new threats on iOS<\/a> and Android<\/a> devices leaves us with an uneasy suspicion that the spammers actually have a strategy. Hmm.<\/p>\nYear over year, the numbers of overall spam are on a decline, there\u2019s no arguing that. But while some choose to regard the general reduction in the amount of spam as a victory, others are taking a more grounded approach<\/a>, pointing out that the numbers don\u2019t mean anything if the spam that\u2019s landing in your inbox is about to nuke you back to the stone age.<\/p>\n The problem: there\u2019s a very real danger here that no one seems to want to discuss, or perhaps more accurately, no one\u2019s outright considered. It\u2019s that collected sigh of relief that occurs when the constant and unwavering bombardments of spam suddenly end. That sudden and deafening silence that occurs only when the screaming stops. The proverbial calm after the storm.<\/p>\n You see, spam filters have gotten so effective that, guess what? They actually work. That\u2019s great news, and that\u2019s exactly what we want out of our spam filters. But what that leaves us with \u2013 what gets through the filters and into our inbox \u2013 is a stuff so nasty and devious that it almost makes one wish for the good ol\u2019 days when we were trashing Viagra ads by the bucketload.<\/p>\n A new report by German security firm A-V Test and a corresponding article by our friends over at The Register<\/a> may help clear the air for a few of you who have opted for breathing a sigh of relief. Entitled \u201cSpam \u2013 More Dangerous than Ever Before,\u201d its title doesn\u2019t leave much doubt as to the conclusions<\/a> reached by A-V Test.<\/p>\n The firm conducted an 18 month study between August 2011 and February 2013, collecting and analyzing more than a half million spam emails. And the results just aren\u2019t making us feel warm and fuzzy. The conclusion, says A-V Test, is that \u201cthe risk posed by spam is higher than ever.\u201d Here are some of the key findings:<\/p>\n Perhaps what\u2019s most telling \u2013 and disturbing \u2013 about the study\u2019s finding is how prevalent botnet infections are in office environments. A-V Test found that 25 percent of botnet activity came from businesses! They came to this conclusion based on some nifty reasoning:<\/p>\n \u201cThe results of the test showed that the amount of spam sent remained extremely consistent from Monday to Friday before reducing to 25 percent at the weekend, namely on Saturday and Sunday. The study therefore proves that 25 percent of all spambots are located in offices, where they are switched off at the weekend. The amount of spam sent then increases straight away on the Monday after the weekend.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n It must have been pretty eerie to observe that phenomenon unfold in real time and come to the understanding of what was going on.<\/p>\n All in all, it\u2019s a pretty revealing study, and if nothing else, it gives us reason to bolster our paranoia. A-V Test even includes complimentary botnet checking (found near the end of the report), so this might be a good opportunity to see if any of your systems are infected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You know, we\u2019ve heard so much over the past two years about the dangerous new onslaught of malware-ridden spam that was just around the corner,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[11,9,10,8,7],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","category-spam","tag-allspammedup","tag-bot","tag-botnet","tag-malware","tag-spam","jsn-master"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1757,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/1757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n