Spam levels have returned to the level they were at before the shut down of McColo, an ISP notorious for being a safe haven for spammers and scammers. Experts had predicted this would probably happen once the displaced customers of McColo found a new haven for their operations. Most have relocated to overseas servers, particularly in the countries of Romania and Estonia. Here’s an excerpt from a report released by Postini:

          Spammers have clearly rallied following the McColo takedown, and overall spam volume growth during Q1 2009 was the strongest it’s been since early 2008, increasing an average of 1.2% per day. To put that number into context, the growth rate of spam volume in Q1 2008 was approximately 1% per day – which, at the time, was a record high.

Not surprisingly, the hot topics being used by spammers include the economy, financial markets and unemployment. In January, spammers made use of the presidential inauguration, and the holidays of Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. Those holidays were also widely used to spread malware in the form of fake e-greetings.

The newest type of spam is location based. It starts with a spam message directing the user to a webpage with a fake news story announcing a national disaster or crisis has hit their city or one nearby. The scammers customize the story to the user’s location by capturing the IP and determining its geolocation, hoping the personalization will help convince them to click on the link, which then loads malware onto their computer.

Spam and malware is predicted to continue to rise throughout 2009 so it’s crucial to make sure your company has solid anti-spam and anti-virus solutions and keeps them updated!