Spam levels up to 85%

August 22, 2007

More than 85 per cent of all email messages sent in July were from spammers, according to new research.

Figures from technology firm Elive have also shown that email size is increasing, with the average spam message seeing growth of up to 80 per cent.

The company noted that spammers are increasingly turning to PDF attachments for scams such as those involving stocks and shares, as opposed to the traditional method of embedding images in messages.

'We have seen changes again in spam tactics in a drive to circumvent anti-spam systems,' commented Sean Ryan, managing director of Elive.

Last week, Adobe security engineer Erick Lee told ZDNet.co.uk that PDF spam attachments do not pose a security risk to email sers who open such unsolicited files.

However, he advised users to continue to be particularly cautious over following links or opening attachments in spam messages.



Author:  BCS
Source:  http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.13919

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