The Deadly Duo: Spam and Viruses, May 2004

A small nugget of good news lies buried among the mountains of unsolicited commercial e-mail: the spam volume held steady from April to May, according to two leading e-mail processing firms. Brightmail's Probe Network found that spam leveled at 64 percent, while Postini measured the monthly volume unchanged at 78 percent.

According to Brightmail's assessments, the last time the spam volume was unchanged was August 2003 when it maintained a 50 percent level.

But Internet users shouldn't be optimistic, and Andrew Lochart, director of product marketing for Postini, notes that the plateau is not indicative of an imminent decline in spam volume. Lochart comments on the chief factor for the unchanged volume: "There is a built-in leveling when spam is reaching this rate, because it can't grow as fast anymore." Lochart adds, "Month-to-month measurement is not enough for us to claim victory and expect to see a decline."

While the volume may have temporarily stalled, the distribution of spam among certain categories has changed. Brightmail measured a slight increase in the amount of adult-related spam, indicating that spammers were not deterred by the new rule from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordering sexually oriented unsolicited e-mail to be labeled as of May 19. Most of the spam continues to be product-related, with the largest growth in the scam spam category. Brightmail reports that there were 102,517 consumer complaints about Internet scams made to the FTC in 2002, representing a nearly 100 percent increase over 2001.