Phishing activity up significantly, spam levels dropping

CNET compiled some facts from Symantec's latest State of Spam and Phishing reports, you can check it out over here. The security company found that phishing attacks rose 52 percent in July, but a tiny snip of good news is that spam levels dropped from 90 percent to 89 percent. It appears action like the one against McColo last year have hindered spammers, compared to last year spam levels are down by about 5 percent.

With some fluctuations, spam averaged around 89 percent of all e-mail in July, noted Symantec. That compares with about 90 percent for the month of June. There are distinct trends in certain types of junk mail. Image spam, which sneaks past filters by embedding spam in an image, accounted for 17 percent of all spam at one point in July. Health-related spam declined 17 percent, while 419 spam (often better known as Nigerian hoax spam) rose 3 percent.

Spammers continued to tap into people and events in the news to spread their junk, noted Symantec. Popular subject lines for spam in July included references to Michael Jackson's death ("Who killed Michael Jackson" and "Jackson is still alive: Proof") and to President Obama and health care ("Obama isn't helping; Let us give you cheap pills.")