Spam to increasingly target US elections

Election motivated content and the names of popular candidates including Barak Obama, Hilary Clinton and John McCain are set to be exploited.

“As we move forward towards the election we’re going to see an increase volume of spam with this sort of content,” Mihai Rusescu, business unit manager EMEA & APAC Business Unit at BitDefender told SC.

Mihai added that image spam volumes will continue to grow while text based spam, often fought off by spam filters, will reduce.

Meanwhile, we’re going to see new viruses aimed at mobile computing as usage of Windows Mobile increases.

“Most manufacturers are embracing the new Windows Mobile operating system, which is using the same core technology as Windows,” said Rusescu.

“Unfortunately it has some gaps and security holes that bad people are trying to take advantage of,” he added.

In terms of PC malware, new aggressive strains will continue coming into the market and cybercriminals will also try to exploit the browser, said Rusescu.