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07.18.08 How To Deal With Spam In Your Company  By David KelleherJust as King Arthur had to battle the invading Saxons in the mythical realm of Camelot, every IT administrator working in Cyberworld has to battle the invading armies of spammers that are constantly laying siege to users' mailboxes. Spam is an exponentially-growing problem that all companies must face irrespective of size or industry. If they use email to do business, they are going to receive spam… it's as simple as that. Conservative estimates suggest that 100 billion spam messages clog the internet daily - this means that 9 out of every 10 emails sent out are useless. The problem is so widespread that people have started to take spam for granted and an acceptable cost of using the technology. However, deleting 10 useless emails is one thing, but having to sift through hundreds of junk messages every morning is another and calls for a different approach to simply pressing the 'delete' key. Factor in a few hundred employees and you get the picture. The cost of spam Over the past two years companies have seen an huge increase in spam volumes and types and this is a reflection of the success registered by spammers to gain access to end-users' mailboxes and, more importantly, their ability to bypass the various methods used to detect these types of email. In a cat-and-mouse game with anti-spam product developers, spammers are constantly changing tactics to outdo spam filters while playing on the inquisitive and gullible nature of email users. Spammers are not interested in sending out millions of emails just for the fun of it; they are using spam to gain information, to send out fake but highly convincing emails encouraging people to purchase products and spend money. They are using spam to get people to click on website links that take the user to a website that automatically downloads malicious material to take over that person's computer.
The major concern for companies is the loss of productivity and money due to the time required by employees to sift through so many useless emails throughout the day. There are other indirect costs such as the impact on the infrastructure, the cost of bandwidth and other storage and network costs. Furthermore, with the influx of spam and its deletion, an important message could accidentally be trashed along with the unsolicited mail in the rush to clear one's inbox of junk mail. Junk email can also make a company liable in the event that employees accidentally open and view inappropriate material. The cost of spam to companies is not easy to assess, but estimates of $10 billion a year in the United States alone is not far off the mark. What is certain is that companies could be in deep trouble if they do not deal with spam effectively. Controlling spam It is impossible to eradicate spam but that doesn't mean companies should sit back and look on helplessly. Legal attempts to stop spam and spammers have had little success so far due to the unregulated nature of the internet. The next best option is for companies to invest in an anti-spam solution that deploys filters to separate the spam from the ham (genuine email). Continue reading this article. About the Author: David Kelleher is Communications and Research Analyst at GFI. |
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