Nearly two-thirds of all emails now spam

Sixty-five per cent of all emails sent in June 2004 were spam - up from just eight per cent three years ago, according to email monitoring company Brightmail.

The steady increase in spam rates shows no sign of slowing, and existing legislation such as the US Can Spam Act will have little effect, claimed the company.

"People are underestimating the spammers," said Enrique Salem, senior vice president of gateway solutions at Brightmail.

"These figures are dramatic. In many ways it's almost a denial of service attack on the email infrastructure. There's a fundamental flaw in the infrastructure: when email was designed we weren't thinking about spam or phishing."

The latest figures also show that non-English language spam is beginning to grow. Sixteen per cent of spam is now in languages other than English, reflecting the increasingly international nature of web traffic.

Brightmail also warned that the rise of phishing attacks is not only having drastic financial effects on those caught out, but may be harming public confidence in the safety and credibility of internet business.

The company called for a public education campaign by government and industry to teach users how to surf the internet safely.

Research by content security company Clearswift earlier this month found that financial and pharmaceutical spam was the fastest growing, and now makes up 69.6 per cent of spam.

But Clearswift also warned that spam is increasingly being used as a vehicle for financial scams, such as phishing.

See also:

US blamed for 85 per cent of spam

Can-Spam law having little effect on US junk mailers  18 Aug 2004

IT managers warned of summer of spam

Seasonal spam trends see dramatic increase in porn junk mail over summer months  16 Aug 2004

UK to lead anti-spam and scam drive

Britain will spearhead co-ordinated worldwide sweep for web fraudsters  06 Aug 2004

Worried firms consider email boycott

Security concerns threaten future of 'everyone's favourite killer app'  16 Jul 2004

ITU wants spam dead within two years

Conference delegates call for international co-operation to defeat 'epidemic'  07 Jul 2004

Spammers face tri-nation crackdown

UK, US and Australia join forces to investigate and prosecute spammers  02 Jul 2004

Will ISPs turn tide of spam?

Pressure is growing on ISPs to do more to stop spam  01 Jul 2004

New laws will make spam worse

Latest UK and US anti-spam laws are failing to stop junk mail, warn experts  09 Jan 2004

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