Commtouch has published the industry’s first ever research report on The State of Hacked Accounts, presenting statistics on the theft, abuse and eventual recovery of Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Facebook accounts. The data reveals that most users get hacked at high rates even when they do not think they are engaging in risky behavior, with 62% unaware of how their accounts had been compromised. Other highlights include:
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Less than one-third of users noticed their accounts had been
compromised, with over 50% relying on friends to point out their stolen
accounts.
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15% of users thought their credentials were stolen after they used a public Internet terminal or WiFi network.
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One in eight hijacked accounts were used for a phony distress
email scam that asks friends to wire funds to a foreign country, and
over half of the accounts were used to send spam.
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Over 230 billion emails with attached malware were sent in the
outbreaks of August and September. The malware included variants of
Sasfis, SpyEye, Zeus, fake antiviruses, and others.
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Phony Facebook notifications lured users to malware, while
large scale scams accumulated hundreds of thousands of Facebook Likes.
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Spam/phishing levels dropped to an average of 93 billion messages per day from July to September.
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The most popular spam topic was pharmacy ads, accounting for 29% of all spam.
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India keeps its title as the country with the most hackers,
scammers and phishers – 18% of all the bad stuff on the Internet comes
from India..
