Only 10% of emails are legitimate
Just 10 per cent of all email is a genuine message, with the volume of spam email, phishing attacks, trojans and virus-infected email messages rising 600 per cent in the past year.
According to Lycos.co.uk, while junk mail has been on the rise for some time, phishing spam and pharming viruses are growing fast.
Phishing emails are messages sent by criminals supposedly from a user's bank asking them to enter personal and financial details. The user is given a link to a spoof site, from which criminals can harvest any details entered
The pharming virus sits on a user's PC and activates when they try to go to their bank site. At this point, the virus springs into life, re-directing them to spoof pages made to look like the legitimate bank website.
Lycos filters are now stripping 90 per cent of messages, Wessel van
Rensburg, head of email for Lycos.co.uk, said.
