'Tis the season for spamming small businesses

Stan Beer
Sunday, 03 December 2006 11:13

Business IT - Security

Reports that global spam levels have reached a staggering 90% of all emails appear to have been vindicated by a new study.

MessageLabs, a global provider of integrated messaging and web security services to businesses, has announced the results of its MessageLabs Intelligence Report for November 2006.  The report highlights a relentless rise in global spam levels and increase in phishing attacks as cyber-criminals ramp up activities in the prelude to the holiday season and how smaller companies are currently the centre of attention for unsolicited messages.

According to the MessagLabs report, global spam levels in November reaching 74% of all emails, an increase of 1.1 percent on October and the highest level observed since early 2005.  Since MessageLabs deploys additional layers of defence at its network perimeter, the actual global spam figure incorporating the traffic management volume would be a staggering 89.4%, according to MessageLabs.

Business sector analysis shows that increased attention is given to small business employees who receive almost twice as many spam messages as medium-sized companies per user per month and 60% more virus traffic per user per month than large enterprise organisations.

Restricted by limited IT resources and budget and lack of depth of security expertise available and also due to the vast amount of companies of this size, smaller companies are easier prey for cyber criminals and more likely to be deceived by sophisticated techniques and high volumes of threats, according to MessageLabs.

“The cyber criminals are out in full force and utilising the holiday season to their advantage. Whether it’s targeting smaller businesses that don’t have the IT expertise or resource to fully protect themselves from new threats, or consumers dropping their guard in exchange for retail therapy, the bad guys have an overabundance of opportunities to target,” said Mark Sunner, chief technology officer, MessageLabs. “With the Warezov Trojan dropper, responsible for October’s steep rise in spam, causing more trouble in November and the phishers back on the radar, companies and consumers alike need to stay extra vigilant at such active times in order to stay healthy during the holiday season.”