New Zealand Facing a Big Threat of Spam Attack

As per a reports coming in from Symantec, the Internet is attacked by spam with around 80% of mails are found as spam. Out of these, many are being operated by money-making gangs.

Steve Martin, Manager of Mid Market in Pacific Region, Symantec, revealed that over 90% of small to medium sized businesses in New Zealand are making use of filters to safeguard themselves. But unfortunately, many spam successfully bypass these filters, as reported by The New Zealand Herald on July 27, 2008.

Security analysts explained that spam is several copies of the same message circulating on the Web. It is forced upon the user, who otherwise would not prefer to select it.

Spokesman of Vodafone, Dave Joyce analyzed the intensity of spam in New Zealand and said that around 98% of e-mails sent to their server were blocked, indicating that many spams were circulating around them, as reported by The New Zealand Herald on July 27, 2008.

Also, Dave added that they make use of "hardware-based" spam protection and succeeded in outstripping hackers who attempt to sign up as customers.

Besides Symantec, Telecom's Xtra Network also revealed that it is attacked with 120 Million individual mails per week, out of which only 20 Million are authentic. The remaining are spam or viruses that the organization filters from the inboxes of customers.

A Spokesman of Xtra revealed that the fight with spammers is constantly evolving. Hackers modify their techniques and providers like Telecom devote huge sum of dollars to safeguard themselves.

Dave also claimed that it is very tough to estimate how much the spam is costing to the economy of New Zealand but the time used to tackle spam is really significant. Further, spam originate from various corners of the world.

The reports said that it is the individual hackers who are behind the New Zealand scam and most of the scams aim to acquire money in some way or other.

Further, Symantec also informed that the spammers take time to adopt developed methods for collecting details viz. authentic logos of companies. They also recommended users to be alert of clicking on unsolicited mail particularly anything associated with bank and they should also be vigilant of revealing too many details on social networking site.

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 8/8/2008