Spam made a big comeback in 2006 according to a report from IronPort Systems, a gateway security provider. The report says that the increase in volume was due to advanced image based spam, which is usually ten times larger than text spam. Because of that digital data sent tripled.
IronPort predicts that in 2007 the spam wave will continue. They say it will disrupt global email infrastructure and cause legitimate email to be delayed.
Tom Gillis, senior vice president, Worldwide Marketing, IronPort Systems said,” “Trends point to a single overarching theme. Spam, viruses, phishing and malware are tools used by well-organized global entities that are profiting from a variety of criminal activities including drug trafficking, fraud and identity theft.”
The report also finds that there exists an elite group of spammers that have a complex infrastructure that spans the globe. They are capable of delivering billions of spam messages from 100,000 different servers in 120 different countries.
The most common forms of spam sent are pharmaceutical and “stock scam” spam. In 2006 “stock scam” spam increased 30 percent. In 2005 it made up only 10 percent of all spam sent.
The usual spam attack now involves billions of messages being sent using complex randomization techniques. Most of the attacks are believed to be coming from groups with ties to organized crime.
To win the war on spam Gillis said,” To combat these sophisticated threats, enterprise security officers need to evaluate solutions that have strong email and web capabilities. An email appliance and a Web security gateway that work together and share a common threat database is the best way to defend against the sophisticated new generation of threats on the Internet.”
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Mike is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
