Spam Continues To Proliferate

With spam accounting for 70% of all email messages, there has been a sharp rise in comparison to the figure of 62% for the last quarter. The revelation comes from Ipswitch Inc.'s fifth Spamometer survey. The growth is attributed to the overwhelming spread of phishing emails that pass off as having trusted sources. They then deceive users into disclosing their personal details with which the phishers commit identity thefts.

Despite the rise in phishing emails, the toppers are spam emails offering medication and pharmaceutical advertising with 36% of all spam. Finance and phishing formed the next highest spam emails at 19%. A reversal occurred in pornographic spam this quarter, falling to no.3 with 14%. This was followed by spam emails on piracy and electronics software with 10%. Also declining was mortgage spam to no. 5 with a share of 9%.

The opinion of Chris Greaves, sales director with Ipswitch is that while the rising percentage of spam emails may sound discouraging, the bigger concern is on the newer threat of phishing emails. phishing is a variation of spam that has the purpose of stealing personal and corporate details. Where regular spam can merely be annoying, phishing is harmful.

As long as spamming is economical spammers will not stop at anything to find ways of getting their emails through filters realizing that they can dupe more victims.

Unfortunately, despite having tools to stop spam, the growth in spam continues to register high volumes. This growth may partially be an attempt to ensure the maximum messages from a declining audience. However the fact that spam as basic as medication sites ranks at the top can be intimidating.

It's not as surprising to find phishing at number two. This version of spam takes advantage of a person's trust being more difficult to understand, and also generates much greater rewards. It is due to this reason that it is becoming increasingly important to use anti-spam filters, according to Clive Longbottom who heads research in Quocirca.

The advice from experts is that all users must make sure they use effective anti-spam software along with updates on a regular basis, in order to protect their inboxes from getting flooded with these emails.

Related article: Spam Scam Bags a Scottish Connection

» SPAMfighter News - 9/7/2006