Spam, Spam, Spam
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If you're feeling the spam pinch, you're not alone. |
Earlier today, Symantec released its monthly report on spam (PDF). Spam levels "at the SMTP layer" were about 65 percent, with the fraud category accounting for about 3 percent and other scams for 6 percent of the total passing through the Symantec Probe Network.
Yesterday, IDC predicted that of the 97 billion e-mails sent each day in 2007, 40 billion would be spam. The research firm said this year will be the first where spam exceeds e-mail sent between people. IDC predicted that business e-mail volumes would be about 5 exabytes, or nearly double the 2005 level.
"Spam volumes are growing faster than expected due to the success of image-based spam in bypassing anti-spam filters and of e-mail sender identity spoofing in getting higher response rates," Mark Levitt, program vice president for IDC's Collaborative Computing and Enterprise Workplace research, said in a statement. "Instant messaging, joined by free and low-cost VOIP calling, will result in slower e-mail growth, especially among teens and young adults."
Personal note: Because of spam, last year I significantly decreased e-mail in favor of instant messaging and VOIP.
Microsoft Watch readers, please share your spam horror or success story.
Comments (8)
Blame Windows botnets. Vint Cerf told the BBC there are 100-150 million of them (PCs controlled by hijackers). The BBC also reported that 94% of all E-mail is now spam.
Refernces, in case you say that I lie.
____
Spam Made Up 94% Of All E-Mail In December
,----[ Quote ]
| "The major event in communications security is the emergence of
| botnets. This has changed the game, the dynamics, and economics
| of the Internet security marketplace. When the bad guys can now
| harness more than a million computers around the world and use
| them to push an increasing amount of attacks, that's a major
| change."
`----
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml
Posted by Roy Schestowitz | April 11, 2007 6:52 AM
The company I work for was getting over 600,000 SPAM emails a day. Then we installed some traffic shaping appliances (Symantec 8160 units) and cut that down to less than 20,000 per day. These devices throttle bandwidth and cause the SPAM to backup on the sending bots. We've only had some minor issues that were easily corrected. I highly recommend these units. I am not affiliated with Symantec - I'm just a very pleased customer who wishes to share a success story.
http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/products/overview.jsp?pcid=1011&pvid=852_1
Posted by Brian Blagbrough | April 11, 2007 9:35 AM
My company has 110,000 emails a day coming into our spam filters. 95% is spam or Virus. So 5% is legit. We use IronPort anti SPam servers very good.
Posted by Bryan Ward | April 11, 2007 9:42 AM
Am I the only one who thinks M$ should bear major responsibility for the overwhelming spam problem and provide significant funding to combat it. It is their junk software that has allowed spammers to create the botnets that flood the email system with spam. M$ quest for $ has caused a worldwide problem and crippled what should have been a technological boon to mankind.
Posted by samnjam | April 11, 2007 1:56 PM
I work at a very small hospital, and am a 1 man shop. I don't have the time to configure rule sets for my 80 some users. I use a service called Postini for basically $1/month/user and have had very good luck! Currently 81% of the messages coming to us are either spam or infected and Postini has them blocked before they ever get to any of my equipment. Don't know what your wages are, but I can't afford to not use this or some other service.
Posted by Kim Jahn | April 11, 2007 3:18 PM
Roy Schestowitz :
Blame Windows botnets. Vint Cerf told the BBC there are 100-150 million of them (PCs controlled by hijackers).
I presume the "100-150 million" refers to PCs, not networks of PCs.
Posted by G6JPG | April 17, 2007 11:45 AM
For free spam filtering, found that Yahoo does a much better job and is more powerful than either Hotmail or my university (.edu) webmail service. Am now having all my .edu mail forwarded to my Yahoo account.
Posted by Bob Kosick | April 17, 2007 4:28 PM
Dear Bob,
FYI the address university.edu belongs to CapStone University. We do not send out emails other than in response to enquiries. We provide distance learning degrees requiring actual study and are a California approved school. I have noticed that two firms advertise their educational program with sponsored ads on yahoo with the heading "university.edu" I have asked both to cease and recognize that that is our url and address and has been for over 12 years. You refer to your "university(.edu) webmail". I'm curious what you are referring to and why a query using our university.edu/webmail brings up your site? Thank you for your explanation.
Garry O. Parker
President
CapStone University
Posted by Garry Parker | July 7, 2008 4:11 PM