Commtouch Reports August Spam Trends: Spammers Seek to Profit From Katrina; Using Katrina to Attract Recipients' Interest and Tr
September 14 2005 - 7:00AM
Business Wire
Commtouch(R) (Nasdaq:CTCH), the developer of ground breaking
Recurrent Pattern Detection (RPD)(TM) technology for real time
anti-spam and zero-hour virus protection, today announced spam
trends and statistics for the month of August. The announcement was
based on data from the Commtouch Spam Detection Center, which
analyzed over 1.5 billion spam messages in the month of August
2005. "Our analysis shows that spammers used Katrina to attract and
hold recipients' interest. Typically, the subject of the email
relates to hurricane related news, while the body of the message
has nothing to do with the hurricane that devastated Louisiana,"
said Oren Drori, director of product marketing at Commtouch. During
a monitoring experiment of less than 5 hours, the Commtouch Spam
Detection Center identified more than 250 examples of such spam
outbreaks, with subject lines such as: -- "today's headlines:
hurricane katrina slams into gulf coast; dozens are dead" --
"travelnewsletter - katrina affects cruise itineraries. stay safe!"
-- "hurricane katrina update - nationwide storm survey" --
"Instantly track Katrina's progress john" In other examples,
variations on "Katrina" and "Hurricane" are used in multiple ways
within the subjects of spam. The objective is to circumvent naive
spam filters (such as Bayesian filters, which tend to white list
messages by 'positive' keywords). Examples include: -- "Claim your
stock car racing gift Katrina" -- "El 'Katrina' podria costarle a
las aseguradoras mas de 20.000 millones" -- "Enter now for a
complimentary trip to Maui Katrina" -- "Get an overnight $1500 cash
advance for Katrina" -- "Katrina win a $50,000 scholarship" --
"Sexy hottie Katrina strips down" Note: spelling and mistypes are
from the original messages. The Real Content: Drugs, Money and Sex
While some spam may have masqueraded as messages relating to
Katrina, the true content of August 2005 remained similar to that
of previous months. The list is headed once again by
pharmaceuticals (29.15%), financing schemes (20.95%) and sex
enhancers (14.19%). -0- *T Category % of spam Popular subjects
----------------- ---------
------------------------------------------ Pharmaceutical 29.15%
"Cailis Softabs Onlly $3.99 d9Z" Financing 20.95% "Congrats on your
Approval", "Get your personalized rate quote NOW" Sex enhancers
14.19% "Alpha male", "Aging shouldn't mean the end of your love
life" Software 10.42% "Adobe Photoshop 8.0 - wholesale price", "All
software -- 75% OFF" Porn & Dating 8.40% "Date couples",
"Dating for naughty people" Gifts & Shopping 8.40% "Want a
Rolex? Try a Replica First", "Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton..."
Stocks & Frauds 3.28% "The Next White Hot St0ck?" "Account
notification from eBay" Other 5.21% *T Spam Volume -- Significant
Increase vs. Summer 2004 The Commtouch Spam Detection Center
identified 27,664,737 new spam outbreaks in August 2005, averaging
922,158 outbreaks per day. This represents a slight decrease from
July 2005, during which 33,977,674 spam outbreaks were detected.
During the period July-August 2005, there were 36% more spam
outbreaks than during the same period in 2004. Spam Sending Domains
Spammers continue to abuse the reputation of the leading email
service providers, forging messages so they appear to be sent from
domains such as Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail. The most popular domains
used as "senders" in August 2005 were: -0- *T yahoo.com &
yahoogroups.com 2.08% hotmail.com 1.35% aol.com 0.55% gmail.com
0.52% msn.com 0.30% sympatico.ca 0.26% netscape.net 0.25% ebay.com
0.22% comcast.net 0.22% fusemail.com 0.20% ebay.de 0.19% *T About
Commtouch Commtouch Software Ltd. (Nasdaq:CTCH) is dedicated to
protecting and preserving the integrity of the world's most
important communications tool -- email. Commtouch has 14 years of
experience developing messaging software, and is a global developer
and provider of proprietary anti-spam and Zero-Hour virus
protection solutions. Using core technologies including RPD
Recurrent Pattern Detection, the Commtouch Detection Center
analyzes 1.5 billion email messages per month to identify new spam
and malware outbreaks within minutes of their introduction into the
Internet. Integrated by 28 OEM partners, Commtouch technology
protects thousands of organizations, with 35 million users in 100
countries. Commtouch is headquartered in Netanya, Israel, and has a
subsidiary in Mountain View, CA. For more information, see:
www.commtouch.com. This press release contains forward-looking
statements, including projections about our business, within the
meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section
21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. For example, statements
in the future tense, and statements including words such as
"expect," "plan," "estimate," anticipate," or "believe" are
forward-looking statements. These statements are based on
information available to us at the time of the release; we assume
no obligation to update any of them. The statements in this release
are not guarantees of future performance and actual results could
differ materially from our current expectations as a result of
numerous factors, including business conditions and growth or
deterioration in the Internet market, commerce and the general
economy, both domestic as well as international; fewer than
expected new-partner relationships; fewer than expected license
agreements resulting from Commtouch's exclusive rights to market
DCC; competitive factors including pricing pressures; technological
developments, and products offered by competitors; the ability of
our OEM partners to successfully penetrate markets with products
integrated with Commtouch technology; a slower than expected
acceptance rate for real time AV solutions in general and the
Commtouch Zero Hour(TM) Virus Protection product in particular;
availability of qualified staff for expansion; technological
difficulties and resource constraints encountered in developing new
products, such as the Zero Hour solution; and the failure of
Commtouch to meet The NASDAQ SmallCap Market's listing standards in
the future;, as well as those risks described in the text of this
press release and the company's Annual Reports on Form 20-F and
reports on Form 6-K, which are available through www.sec.gov.
Recurrent Pattern Detection, RPD and Zero-Hour are trademarks, and
Commtouch is a registered trademark, of Commtouch Software Ltd.
U.S. Patent No. 6,330,590 is owned by Commtouch.
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