There’s a massive spam blast in progress. ComputerWorld reports that the spam outbreak is setting records, 50 to 60 times the normal volume of spam, with subjects like Worm Alert!, Worm Detected, Spyware Detected!, and Virus Activity Detected!, and carrying ZIP file attachments containing the “Storm Trojan” virus.
“Postini has already counted nearly 5 million copies of the spam in the last 24 hours, and calculated that the run currently accounts for 87% of all malware being spread through e-mail. Spam rates have jumped as well; Postini said 79% of all e-mail is now spam, while rival MessageLabs Ltd. reported a 13% jump in spam’s slice of all messages in just one hour.
“‘Expect this to grow much larger,’ Swidler said. ‘It should top out at 60 million messages within the next 24 hours.'”
With luck, most of you will never see these reach your mailbox, and your up-to-date security programs will keep you safe. Still, it always bears repeating: never never never open unexpected e-mail attachments.
