Spim and splog increase, viruses double in the next two years

Spammers are slowly giving up e-mail and moving to more efficient channels such as blog spam (splog), mobile messaging, web messages (spim) and social networking community. Assembly like MySpace .

US-based e-mail service company MessageLabs said the new method will help spammers target specific audiences based on age, geographic location, personality and preferences. According to Mark Sunner, Technical Director of MessageLabs, social networks have inadvertently "given" the spammer complete user profiles.

MessageLabs also stressed that IM spam, also called spim is increasing. "The number of connections sent via instant messages is getting bigger and bigger . These links will lead people to the site to download dangerous or phishing codes online ," Sunner said. " We are worried that the situation will be even more serious when Yahoo, MSN and Google are connected ."

Sunner said MessageLabs is seeking to deal with personal web spam.

Also related to Internet risks, US security firm McAfee yesterday recorded the 200,000 risk program and confirmed that the number will double in 2008.

From 1999 to 2002, McAfee's database was relatively stable with about 50,000 virus definitions. But since then, the number of software used to attack users' devices has increased constantly.

In contrast, large-scale virus dispersal seems to have become a thing of the past. In 2004, McAfee counted 48 viruses that were widespread. By 2005, people had only witnessed 12 cases and there was no one case for 7 months of 2006.

Viruses that have increased, reduced scale attacks only show the "professionalism" of hackers because they no longer want to be famous but now want to exploit the vulnerability or loopholes of users to make money.