Spain continues to lead the world spam ranking. It does it in addition, by seventh consecutive quarter, all of 2020, and 2021. According to Kaspersky, our country has received 9.55% of this type of attacks at the international level between July and September.
This figure means that the number of attacks has increased by half a percentage point compared to the second quarter of 2021. Russia is behind Spain, with 6.52% of the total; Italy, with 5.47%; Brazil, with 5.37%; and Mexico, with 4.69% of the total world attacks.
Regarding the classification of countries from where it is sent more spam, Russia It once again occupies the first position with an outstanding 24.9% of the total, despite the fact that this percentage is slightly lower than that registered in the second quarter. In second place in the ranking are Germany (14.19%), China (10.31%), the United States (9.15%) and the Netherlands (4.96%). Spain ranks eighth in this classification, accounting for 2.70% of outgoing spam internationally.
However, the average percentage of spam in the general email traffic registered during this quarter has decreased by 1.09% compared to the previous period, settling at 45.47%. August has been the month with the highest percentage, with 45.84%.
Phishing-related activity
The third quarter of 2021 has also been marked by an important activity related to the phishing attacks. During this period, Kaspersky solutions have blocked more than 5.6 million redirect attempts to phishing pages.
The pandemic is no longer the main hook used by cybercriminals, and has given way to other events such as the European Football Championship, the Tokyo Olympics or the Formula 1 Grand Prix, which have become one of the favorite resources to scam users.
During the celebration of Euro 2020, hosted in more than a dozen European cities, football fans came across a multitude of fake websites that posed as official sites for the sale of tickets for the competition’s matches. Some of these pages offered much higher prices to viewers, and many others were simply made with their money without the final sale of the ticket.
However, not only fans who wanted to attend the meetings on site have witnessed the tricks of cybercriminals. In this time, fraudulent online platforms have appeared that offered users the possibility of watching the games totally free. Despite this offer, viewers had to make a subscription that ultimately led to the theft of confidential information.
Another summer sporting event used by cybercriminals has been the Tokyo Olympics, held between the months of July and August. The ‘Nigerian Prince’ scam has put its focus on the sports competition par excellence, promising millionaire profits in raffles related to the Olympic Games. To be eligible for the award, users had to fill out a fake form and submit it in full to the cybercriminals, who eventually got hold of the victims’ private data.
