News

Amateur Hour is Over – Spam is now a $200 Billion Business

IronPort Systems has announced the availability of its 2008 Internet Security Trends Report which highlights the key security trends of today and suggests ways to defend against the sophisticated new generation of Internet threats certain to arise in the future.

Key highlights

•120 billion spam messages are sent every day worldwide

•20 billion spam messages are targeted at the UK every day

•98% of all email traffic is now spam

•UK on-line Christmas shopping to be targeted

•In 2008 social network sites will become prime source of personal data for spam gangs to target UK

“2007 marks a turning point for threats in the UK. Just when malware design seemed to have reached a plateau, new attack techniques have emerged, some so complex – and obviously not the work of amateurs – they could have only been designed by means of sophisticated research and development,” said Jason Steer, European Product Manager, IronPort. “For a time, security controls designed to manage malware were working. But, as a result of this success, the threats they protected against were forced to change. In 2007, many of these threats underwent significant adaptation. Malware went stealth, and the sophistication increased.”