The ClickZ network has an excellent article on spam and virus statistics for February 2006. Here are some highlights that spotlight spam and the problems of email delivery. 80 percent of all Internet traffic comprises abusive email The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, a new body that aims to measure and reduce spam, released its first report which finds that out of 127.2 million represented email boxes:
- there were 61.342 billion dropped connections (email undelivered due to server outage);
- 142.534 billion blocked or tagged inbound emails; and
- 36.593 billion unaltered, delivered emails in the fourth quarter of 2005.
The ratio of blocked or tagged inbound email to valid email is 5.6 to 1, or 85 percent. Quoting similar figures, anti-spam vendor Commtouch said spam accounted for:
- 46.4% of all email traffic for corporate users;
- Consumer email accounts reached a much higher rate.
The combined average on a global level is 58.2%, about two out of every three e-mails. What it is, and where it all comes from Also using figures from Commtouch, these countries are the top five spammers:
- United States - 43.7%
- China - 13.6%
- Germany - 3.9%
- Republic of Korea - 3.8%
- France - 2.7%
And the spam categories, as of February 2006, are:
- Pharmaceuticals - 52.2%
- Enhancers - 15.5%
- Gifts - 14.4%
- Finance - 8.1%
- Porn / Software / Other - 9.8%
Phishing is getting sophisticated An evolution in phishing attacks that appear to be sent from bank and financial institutions was recognized by AppRiver. Instead of the typical phishing email stating a user’s account is in peril, a number of emails asked customers to take a survey and receive a credit of $20 as a reward. MessageLabs captured the global ratio of phishing emails, and reports that one in 335 emails was a phishing attempt.
