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Daily Spam Deluge Quintupled to 3 Billion in Last Six Months of 2009

by Terrence O'Brien on February 18, 2010 at 08:20 AM

M86 Security has released a study (PDF) of the current state of spam, and some of the numbers are quite disturbing. At the end of 2009, 3 billion spam messages were being sent each day. That's a 500-percent increase from the daily amount sent during the first half of 2009.

Equally worrisome are reports that the five most popular botnets are responsible for almost 80-percent of spam, indicating that both security firms and users are failing to adequately defend against such threats. It seems that everyone can share the blame here. Security companies are not making fixes sufficiently visible, nor are they properly explaining the importance of protecting your PC. Meanwhile, users (*cough* *cough*) continue their bad browsing habits.

The sudden jump in numbers didn't occur in a vacuum of course. With more computers making their way into the less developed countries, filled with desperately poor people eager to make a quick buck, and the rise of great avenues for distributing malware, like Facebook, it's no surprise that these botnets have grown exponentially. Still much of the impact could be blunted if users and security companies weren't so apathetic. [From: M86 Security (PDF), via: Threatpost]

Tags: botnet, security, spam, top

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