The amount of malware containing spam is on the increase, according to new figures released by security firm Symantec.
The company says malware-containing spam never took up more than 3% of all spam on any day during this year, but this trend shifted in June.
“Malware spam made up almost 12% of all spam on June 13, and topped 5% on June 3 and 15,” a new company report states.
It also says spammers are “trying to make up for the loss of several zombie networks, due to legal actions”. The increased amount of malware is designed to add as many computers to infected networks as possible.
However, the report also notes the total amount of spam has declined, now making up only 88.3% of messages compared to 89.8% in May.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
