Christmas cheer to be tempered with rise in scams

By Stuart Finlayson

Nov 22, 2004: The increase in goodwill and general bonhomie experienced by many of us over the festive period will be overshadowed to a degree by a significant increase in the amount of email scams doing the rounds in the lead up to Christmas. /p>

This is among the findings from the spam and virus analytics team at email security vendor FrontBridge Technologies, who expect spam levels to rise significantly during December, accounting for around 90 percent of all email traffic.

"The holidays are notoriously busy for spammers," said Dan Nadir, vice president of product management at FrontBridge. "As the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear and more consumers are using the Internet and email to buy and send gifts, spammers will likely send record numbers of spam emails."

With this rise in spam emails, FrontBridge is anticipating a significant increase in email scams, which, it says, are becoming more sophisticated. Scams designed to relieve people of their bank account details, social security numbers and other security passwords, are expected to rise.

To avoid falling victim to such scams over the holiday period (or indeed, at any other time), users should adhere to the following tips:

- Do not open or reply to email or attachments that request personal or financial information- Check online statements frequently- Look for secure websites- Report suspicious activity- Don't buy gifts from spammed ads- Pay attention when filling out online forms- Be careful giving out your email address to strangers

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