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Spam Recovers, Now 94% of All E-Mail Once Again

by Evan Shamoon on April 1, 2009 at 10:12 AM



While always-improving filters from the likes of Google and Microsoft have certainly slowed the rate at which spam invades our lives, those pesky, malicious e-mails aren't going away any time soon.

In November of 2008, spam took a hit when Internet providers severed connections with McColo Corporation, a California-based Web hosting service that many spammers were using for their spammy ways. Adam Swidler, who is the product marketing manager for Postini Services, an anti-spam company owned by search giant Google, told the New York Times: "By far, it was the most dramatic event we have ever seen." Reports had spam levels down as much as 70-percent after the incident.

Now, just months later, spam is back to making up around 94-percent of all e-mail, having increased at an estimated rate of 1.2-percent each day. "What the spammers have been using to rebuild is more technically advanced than what got taken out and is itself a more resilient technology," Mr. Swidler told the paper. "It's unlikely we are going to see another event like McColo where taking out an ISP has that kind of dramatic impact on global spam volumes."


Worst of all, a new breed of location-based spam has apparently hit the Internets. According to Postini, it directs the unsuspecting user to a page with fake news headlines and videos from his or her particular area, using the computer's IP address to identify the nearest major city. When the user clicks on a video, he gets a virus.

Be careful out there. [From: New York Times]

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Tags: e-mail, security, spam, virus, web

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