Spam is up two-thirds of all emails

Date: May 29, 2004
Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By: Dmitri Kramarenko

One of the most spread computer crimes, offences committed using high technologies, is spam. It continues to flood the Internet with the increase in junk mail. Last month, spam was more than two-thirds of the 840 emails scanned by filtering firm MessageLabs (messagelabs.com), according to UK site The Register.

Email traffic sent to the US, the UK, Germany, Australia and Hong Kong was more than 97 percent of the global spam volumes filtered by MessageLabs, with the US rating the worst with spam hitting a counting 83 percent. The figures suggest spammers are mostly targeting English-speaking countries and regions with the highest Internet and email usage.

MessageLabs chief technology officer told The Register that English-speaking countries would always be natural targets for spammers, as mass mailing in a common language is the simplest way to distribute their messages.

While the rise of pharmaceutical spam (40 percent) and financial spam (37.8 percent) continue to rise, rival message filtering firm Clearswift (clearswift.com) reports a decrease in sexually explicit spam (five percent). The majority of spam originates in the US, with Boca Raton, Florida being the junk mail capital of the world.

---

Add comment  Email to a Friend