Image Spam Grows to 20% of Spam

SAN BRUNO, CA, United States (UPI) -- E-mail spam that relies on images to make it difficult to filter now encompasses 21 percent of all spam, said IronPort Systems, a San Bruno, Calif., company.

The anti-spam company said the form of e-mail advertising has grown rapidly since 2005, when it accounted for 1 percent of spam, USA Today reported Monday. Spam is unsolicited advertising or messages sent via e-mail.

The image-based spam, which is harder to detect than text spam, uses software that creates variances in the images` sizes, colors, backgrounds, and font types so spam filters recognize them as unique messages and do not block them, Craig Sprosts of IronPort, told the newspaper.

» Tech News - United Press International - 25-07-2006