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04-08-08 + SPAM Trends for 2008 Spam and Email Pain in 2008 At QuoStar we haven’t seen any let up in the levels of SPAM attempting to flow into our customers in 2008, be it through our customer’s Barracuda systems or our own managed SPAM solution. We have 10's of thousands of emails hitting our managed SPAM services every hour and SPAM accounts for over 85% of all those emails. The SPAM is more or less the same as it was in 2007, although there appears to be an increase in Phishing attacks hitting the filters. We have certainly seen a reduction in PDF based SPAM which did cause some problems earlier in the year. There does also appear to be a let up in image based SPAM sneaking through the gates. The standard SPAM emails, in terms of text and html are still creeping up in numbers on our block lists; mainly due to the fact that it is harder for inferior filters to block this type of SPAM as most legitimate emails now include text, URL links and html as standard. A number of vendors state that SPAM originating from Europe has overtaken SPAM coming out of the US. We have seen this trend growing, although it's not surprising due to the growth of broadband use across Europe. A recent report by the OECD states that Europe holds six out of the top ten broadband using countries in the world. If you look at the numbers of broadband users per 100 then Europe holds eight out of ten places. The level of viruses trying to breach defences is greatly reduced. We only see a small amount per day being dropped, and it is not surprising. Virus protection at every level has vastly improved since the days of Blaster and Nimda downing whole networks. Sending an effective large-scale email-borne virus is a difficult task at the moment. That does not mean that the risk is not there, as it is. An annoying trend for our customers that we have seen grow within the UK over the last twelve months is the growth of recruitment companies sending speculative and headhunting emails into an organisation. It is always hard for an employee to turn down a large pay increase or an exciting job offer. This is a particular pain for companies who employ staff with specific skill-sets which are in high demand. It is hard for employers to block these emails as they will typically not be picked up by SPAM filters. It is possible to block specific domains if you know where these emails are originating from, and most SPAM filters or email servers can be configured to do so. It's hard to block all of them though as they can originate from anywhere. You may need to employ higher levels of message and content filters to control this problem. The threat landscape is quiet at the moment. The risks and dangers are called and the water is calm. It won’t stay that way forever though with the rapid advances in internet users and our shrinking world. You should never forget the basics:- - Ensure you have an effective patch management strategy in place and that your systems are up-to-date with security updates. - Keep your virus protection up-to-date on your desktops, servers and your gateways. - Filter SPAM from entering your network. - Test your security regularly at every level. If you would like to discuss any of the issues of the mentioned then do just give us a call. We are happy to chat without any obligation. Robert Rutherford Tuesday 8th April 2008 | Contact Us 0845 644 0331 | info@quostar.com
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