Nov. 3, 2009 (Al Bawaba) -- Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the publication of its October 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence Report. Analysis reveals an increase in seasonally-themed spam including Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day as well as a surge in phishing attacks related to tax deadlines in the UK and Australia. In mid-October MessageLabs Intelligence began seeing Halloween themed spam messages accounting for .5 percent of all spam increasing steadily and peaking at 500 million emails circulating worldwide daily as the holiday draws closer. Also in October, phishing runs purporting to be from the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) in the US and HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) in the UK experienced a surge. According to MessageLabs Intelligence, while the topic of the Halloween-themed emails, originating from the Rustock and Donbot botnets, appears to be for pharmaceuticals or software, the Christmas and Thanksgiving spam, sent by the Cutwail botnet, is for replica watches. The replica watch spam messages accounted for approximately 2 percent of spam in October. Two billion of these messages are projected to be in global circulation on a daily basis in the coming months. Interception of IRS phishing emails peaked on October 10accounting for 67 percent of all phishing emails in a 24-hour period while HMRC phishing emails, peaking on October 13, accounted for 81 percent of all phishing interceptions that day, one of the largest ever HMRC phishing runs. “As is typical with spammers this time of year, we are seeing them try to capitalize on the holiday season,” said MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Paul Wood. “Although they may be a bit overzealous, spamming is a numbers game and the spammers have certainly succeeded with volume thus far. Perhaps their early-bird approach is an attempt to compete with the other botnets and get in early to maximize their chances of success.” Although tax-related phishing runs surged in October, phishing attacks in general have been declining compared to peaks of activity earlier in the year. MessageLabs Intelligence believes this is partly due to the reduction in phishing toolkits available for use. However, phishing runs in languages other than English, such as French and Italian, do appear to be increasing. “When it comes to phishing runs,” Wood said, “we have seen a significant shift in the bad guys’ approach.