Spam Persists Because it Yields Profit

Lashback, an e-mail security firm, has said that despite the increased sophistication in anti-spam software and growing knowledge among e-mail users, spam are showing no signs of slowdown.

Brandon Phillips, Chief Executive Officer, Lashback, states that the reason why unwanted materials end up in users' inboxes is that people willingly buy them, as reported by UPI on December 28, 2009.

The security company stated that just a handful of responses were enough to turn spammers' campaigns into profits since the dispatch of massive amounts of undesired electronic mails actually entailed extremely low cost.

While tracing spam, Lashback discovered that 6% of surveyed Internet users reported that they consciously viewed spam mails due to curiosity for the product. Even Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group confirmed this fact in a report, which indicated that 50% of e-mail users willingly opened spam mails. 10% of them opened spam mail just to know about the item.

Disturbingly, the total volume of e-mails making solicitations is increasing. Project Honey Pot, which monitors spam, said that the total number of bots (computers compromised and added to networks for the distribution of spam mails) has quadrupled every year since 2004. Currently, the number is around 400,000/day, the project stated.

Commenting on the problem, the security specialists stated that the spam industry had launched some significant spam campaigns during 2009. Nevertheless, it suffered certain legal impediments since Sanford Wallace was slapped with a fine amounting to $711 Million along with operational ones. Actually, the security professionals had found a botnet, which Wallace operated to send approximately 10% of the total spam.

Though law enforcement and technology are continuously improving, the problem of spam is becoming even bad, with rise in its volume along with sophistication in executing the crime. Majority of the anti-spam products in use aren't really effective. Hence, to keep oneself protected from probable spam assaults, security specialists advise consumers to be vigilant as well as use high quality and updated antivirus solutions and spam filters.

Related article: Spam Scam Bags a Scottish Connection

» SPAMfighter News - 1/6/2010