MessageLabs today announced that the number of inappropriate and potentially sensitive images sent as email attachments has declined over the past six months in comparison to the same period last year.
This includes pornography, cartoons, jokes, greeting cards and other non-work related material that can waste valuable bandwidth and offend employees. In many instances, such images are in violation of acceptable usage policies.
According to MessageLabs’ data, the ratio of email attachments containing such images was 1 in 4,756 (0.02%) during the six-month period from March – August 2004. In the same period in 2003, the ratio was 1 in 1,357 (0.07%).
Mark Sunner, Chief Technology Officer at MessageLabs, commented: “While we cannot say for certain what has caused this drop, one possible explanation is growing enforcement of corporate governance requirements. For companies that use email to conduct critical business transactions and communications, corporate governance can be a great concern. We are now seeing a number of organizations using email management solutions to help ensure compliance and reduce risk. The effect of this could be one of the reasons why fewer inappropriate images are being sent via email.”
Email scanned by MessageLabs also reveals a drop in spam and viruses in circulation in August 2004. Of all email scanned by MessageLabs’ Anti-Spam service, 84.2% was categorized as spam, compared to a ratio of 94.5% during July 2004. And 6.9% of the emails scanned by MessageLabs’ Anti-Virus service were identified as virus-infected during August, a decrease from the 7.3% intercepted during July.
Sunner concludes: “The summer months are often a quiet time for virus and spam distribution – despite exceptions like last August’s SoBig.F virus. Virus activity tends to be cyclical, with periods of stability punctuated by outbreaks of varying significance. The drop in spam volumes may also be partly as a result of the United States’ Operation Web Snare during which more than 150 people were arrested for a variety of online criminal activities, including spamming. This operation may have removed some of the perpetrators from active service and could have worried people enough to suspend operations for now.”
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