AppRiver: Malicious Email Numbers Rise for Third Straight Quarter

Spam emails originating from the United States have risen for a third consecutive quarter, according to a new study from AppRiver.

The messaging and security solution provider released the metrics from its Q1 Global Security Report this week, which found spam traffic increased 38 percent from the previous quarter, with spam originating from North America and Europe totaling 78 percent of all Q1 spam traffic.

AppRiver quarantined 5.5 billion spam messages and blocked 200 million emails containing viruses in attachments between January and March, according to the report. AppRiver said about 83 percent of all email traffic sent contained spam.

Tax scam emails were also common during Q1 2015, with AppRiver reporting an increase in the amount of tax-related spam intended to phish personal information from users.

“We’ve seen hundreds of variants of tax-themed email campaigns attempting to dupe users in the first quarter of 2015,” said Fred Touchette, senior security analyst at AppRiver, in a statement. “The majority of messages either contain malware directly as an attachment or contain a URL leading to a malicious payload. More and more users are now filing electronically and in the eyes of unsuspecting users, many emails can seem legitimate.”

Unsurprisingly, POS malware was also common this quarter, after hackers attempted to piggyback off of the success of last year’s high-profile retail breaches, according to AppRiver. February also saw a large-scale data breach from Anthem Insurance, which led to leaked information for more than 80 million of the company’s customers.

Cybersecurity continues to be a top concern for IT companies, especially those with a large mobile workforce. Aruba Networks (ARUN) recently released a new study on enterprise security practices, which found that millennials are the primary group of workers who regularly put enterprise data at risk when using mobile devices.

Security threats centering around point-of-sale breaches and encrypted data are also on the rise, according to the 2015 Dell Security Annual Threat Report. Dell reported an increase in attacks originating from SSL/TLS encrypted protocols as well as increase in attacks against industrial control systems.

But the rise in security threats isn’t all doom and gloom; in fact, security concerns could equal new business opportunities for many solution providers. Enterprises can also reduce the risk of attacks by educating their employees and creating internal training programs to protect against breaches.