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01.11.08
Spam Levels Hit 95% In 2007
 By
Mike Sachoff
Spam comprised 95 percent of all email traffic in 2007 according to anti-spam company SpamStopsHere.
Spammers experimented with attaching encoded messages in a variety of file formats including MP3, Zip, Excel, Word and PDF. MP3 spam proved to be short lived. Spammers attached MP3 files named after popular songs and artists. When a recipient opened the attachment an electronic voice delivered a message promoting a stock for a particular company.
2007 was also the year of the "Worm". The storm worm was created to infect PCs for the purpose of sending spam, or as a host computer that is able to infect other PCs. Experts have estimated the number of infected PCs could be as high as 10 million.
Phishing scams were also wide spread. Banking, IRS, eBay and PayPal phishing attacks increased significantly in 2007. Spamstopshere recommends the following guidelines when faced with a suspected phishing attack.
1. If an email asks you to log-in to your bank, PayPal, eBay or other personal account, assume it is a phishing scam.
2. Never enter banking information, social security numbers or other sensitive information into any web site that resulted from clicking a link in an email.
3. Never enter your computer user name and password into any email that requests it, not even if it claims to be from your IT manager or other co-worker. It is easy for a spammer to forge the sender's name.
4. If you unsure as to the legitimacy of a particular email, open an internet browser and manually type in the URL of the institution in question, e.g. www.chase.com. Do not use the URL in the email as a reference, as it may be a forgery.
"2007 was a challenging year for the antispam industry and a phenomenal year for us," said Ted Green, President of SpamStopsHere. "With spam reaching such critical levels, our customer base has grown substantially due to the simple fact that many of our competitors have difficulty keeping their antispam solutions up to date with the latest spam campaigns."
"SpamStopsHere has a team of technicians that review spam 24 hours, seven days a week. This allows us to update our system every minute and block the latest spam campaigns."
About the Author:
Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.
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