Spam Swamps SMBs
Spam Swamps SMBs
April 3, 2007: Enterprises swamped in spam should take a moment to consider their SMB cousins who according to MessageLabs, now experience as much spam per user as the average large sized organisation.
The March Intelligence Report from MessageLabs reveals spammers do not distinguish between the size of organisations attacked. With smaller businesses receiving just as much spam as enterprises, they are somewhat of a softer target as they are less likely to have defence systems in place.
The MessageLabs research reveals that SMBs can soon expect to receive more than double the volume of spam currently hitting the inboxes of enterprises. It’s news that comes just months after MessageLabs’ cosponsored research from IDC found that for most SMBs, security is not a top business priority.
According to Mark Sunner, chief security analyst for MessageLabs, spam has now become a side-effect of emails. “The majority of small businesses view spam as an ongoing irritation rather than a real threat and have given up on dealing with the issue only to find that bad guys target them even more aggressively,” he says.
“If the first quarter data tells us anything, it’s that malicious activity in the form of spam will only continue on an upward trend.”
The 2.6 percent decrease in spam from February to March will bring little relief to organisations as MessageLabs uncovered an overall increase in spam for the first quarter of 2007. It was the highest quarterly leap to occur in two years, rising to an average volume rate of 76.3 percent.
Comparatively, Australia appears to be bearing the softer end of the spam influx. Australia averages a spam rate of about 41.3 percent of the total volume of email, a 4.6 percent decrease since the February report.
Although viruses and Trojan activity have been on the decline for some time, the fewer attacks occurring are increasingly more sophisticated with attacks better targeted and more subtle.
Phishing levels were on the decrease this month but it’s not all good news for online organisations. eBay and PayPal attacks are now estimated provide for almost half of all Phishing websites. The online auction company is gearing up to offer secure authentication key-fobs to Australian customers in a bid to increase security.
Hong Kong appears to be quickly becoming a safe-haven for hosting ‘spamvertized,’ or websites advertised in spam messages, as well as phishing domains. Overall, MessageLabs found Hong Kong needs to step up its game with sites hosted with a .HK suffix taking longer to close down and therefore likely to work more damage on their victims.