Ipswitch Attributes Spam Rates to High Stock Tip and Phishing E-Mails

Ipswitch, the company that monitors network and e-mail has announced its sixth 'Spamometer' report. It elicits the survey findings relating to frequency and message content of unsolicited e-mails called 'spam'.

The survey found that 84.4% of all e-mail delivered over the last three months of 2006 was spam. In other words, 17 out of 20 e-mails delivered were spam. The firm warns that most of the e-mail recipients succumb to the spam mails, especially those that encourage purchasing shares of some specific companies. In the previous quarter the spam rate was 70% while it was only 57% in the earlier holiday season. The increase to the current rates attribute to the constant rise in stock tip and phishing e-mails. phishing e-mails entice recipients to surrender personal details that fraudsters can use for identity theft.

Product marketing manager for Ipswitch, Karl Klaessig said in a company press release that there has been lot of "hot stock tips" spam. These stocks estimate to an increase of 5% just after a massive spam output. This disappointingly proves the effectiveness of spamming. MarketWire published Klaessig's statement on February 12, 2007.

The study further found that nearly 50% of spam mails pushed out in the last quarter of 2006 were phishing e-mails. spammers use this attack to misdirect recipients to fake websites and trick them to leave personal financial particulars.

The leading category of spam in the last quarter was 'medication' that dropped to the second position although it accounted for a quarter of all spam mails. The proportion of pornographic spam went on declining over the holiday season making up to only 7% of spam mails.

Clive Longbottom, research head at analyst company, Quocirca pointed out the harmful nature of phishing e-mails. He explained how phishing means big money for organized crime. spammers are using smarter techniques, shifting from 'blended text' i.e., messages having mixture of classic text and phishing message to 'image spam' where the email contains a picture in place of written text.

Such image spam e-mails are far more convincing to people who succumb to them often losing tens of thousands of pounds, said Longbottom.

Related article: Ipswitch Releases 2009 Q1 Spamometer Report, Botnets Surging

» SPAMfighter News - 2/21/2007