Symantec’s Intelligence report for June shows a marked drop in spam received by business email users worldwide. Their metrics show businesses received a little less than half the spam they usually receive over a month. Perhaps the spammers are taking vacation days as well?

Agent Alex has been following news about the Cryptowall, Cyptolocker and Crowti malware as part of his service as a member of our Technical Tools Team. He reached out to say that there have been some recent developments to which we should pay attention. Let’s let him tell it.

Apple computer users have mostly flown under the “malware radar” for years. For a variety of reasons, the Mac operating system (OS) wasn’t targeted by hackers as much as Windows was, and Mac users were able to browse the Web largely unaffected by infections. But as Apple’s share of the computing market has grown, cyber-criminals have set their sights on the Mac OS.

So you’re sitting there, innocently using your computer, when a window flashes on the screen, bearing the logo of the FBI. You’ve been locked out of your computer for breaking some not-too-specifically-identified copyright law. The solution on the screen? Pay a fine to the “FBI” to “unlock” your computer and use it again.

Summary: The GPCode ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts your files and holds the data hostage.