Windows Live Hotmail Accounts Receive 5.5 Billion Spam Everyday

350 Million people (along with hackers), who have Windows Live accounts , send 8 Billion spam mails on an average every day. Microsoft has revealed that bulk of messages directed towards Windows Live Hotmail accounts are actually spam.

Dick Craddock, Group Program Manager, Windows Live Hotmail, states Microsoft is refining around 5.5 Billion unsolicited messages that never reach 1.3 Billion users taking advantage of the service, as per the news by Softpedia on January 21, 2010.

Dick Craddock has also claimed that hackers are continuously looking for new methods to exploit Hotmail and other mail services. Spam is a huge business and it only operates if spam messages (even just a small percentage of them) get delivered. The blog posted by Craddock has also mentioned that the strong profit reason encourage hackers to discover holes to exploit; therefore, new methods evolve daily, as reported by Windows on January 20, 2010.

The data provided by Craddock is a different from data given by one of his co-workers just before Christmas. Arthur de Haan, who is responsible for Test and System Engineering in Windows Live, stated that Microsoft managed around 3 Billion messages every day and filtered almost 1 Billion spam mails.

Commenting on this, Craddock states that there are several approaches to measure spam. His approach or way is to use authentic user data to calculate the amount of spam entered in the system.

The researcher has also paid attention to phishing. As per Craddock, one of the most egregious kinds of spam is phishing - a kind of spam attack that tries to obtain some sensitive details through forged, deceptive mails. Like other scams, phishing scam can be effective even with very low success rate as the hacker only needs to boost the amount of mail in order to gain profit.

Therefore, the users are recommended not to give account details when a request comes through mail. They should also learn to recognize phishing scams by looking for frequently used methods, like embedding links that seem authentic but actually take to a phony site.

Related article: Windows XP Fault Strike Firewall

» SPAMfighter News - 1/30/2010