Spam still the major email nuisance

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 31 January 2007 07:16

Your IT - Home IT

Despite an upturn in the incidence of mail-borne viruses and phishing attacks, spam still accounts for the overwhelming majority of nuisance emails.

According to MessageLabs' January 2007 intelligence report, spam represents just over three-quarters of all email. This figure was determined after taking measures including the blocking of any source that "can unequivocally be identified as an open proxy or a botnet," and the company estimates the gross figure would be close to 85 percent.

Despite a sharp rise in the incidence of viruses and Trojans since November 2006, the current level of 0.83 percent is still a long way below the historical peak of 9.6 percent in April 2004.

In fact, phishing attacks are more common than viruses and Trojans, as they accounted for slightly over one percent of emails during January. According to MessageLabs, the trend to two-factor authentication (such as tokens that generate a security code that changes every 30 seconds) will change rather than eliminate phishing. Instead of capturing login details for later use, phishing sites would launch 'man in the middle' attacks, using victims' details to immediately sign on to the real sites.