New kid on the block: Mega-D overtakes Storm Worm

From SC Magazine:

Dubbed Mega-D, the botnet currently accounts for 32 percent of all spam, 11 percent more than the Storm botnet which peaked at 21 percent in September 2007.

The spam campaign heavily promotes several pharmaceutical products including Herbal King, Express Herbals, and VPXL.

It is a blended threat, the emails trick users into installing Mega-D, said Bradley Anstis, vice-president of products at Marshal.

It is also using news headlines to trick victims into opening the spam, a technique synonymous with the Storm worm. The recent death of Australian actor Heath Ledger has also been used as a ploy, he added.

“[Mega-D] probably started about four months ago and it’s been steadily increasing since then,” said Anstis. “It is possible that the individuals behind the Storm botnet are responsible for one or more of these other botnets."

Security vendor Bitdefender reported it had detected heavy promotion for the same herbal medicine VPXL in its January top ten threats list released today. VPXL makes up about 75 percent of all pharma spam, according to Bitdefender.

Marshal believes the Storm’s contribution to worldwide levels of spam has declined to just two per cent.

According to Marshal, reasons behind the Storm worm’s demise are unclear but claim Microsoft’s recent security enhancement may have played a part.

Full article @ SC Magazine.