Spammers: Goodbye Porn, Hello Drugs
Security firm Clearswift has conducted an in-depth study of unsolicited e-mail which reveals a very unusual trend - spammers have turned their backs on porn. When Clearswift first started the Spam Index two years ago porn was the dominant inbox plague. Now thanks to increased sophistication of anti-spam technologies, the company claims that unsolicited mailers have settled for the safer options of healthcare and financial spam.
However, sex still sells, with healthcare spam - mainly libido-enhancing pills - now consistently dominating e-mail inboxes, with dodgy financial offers following a close second. In June 2003, when the first Spam Index began, healthcare and financial spam together accounted for only 39 per cent of all spam e-mails. Yet according to last month's analysis of over 20,000 individual mails, these two sectors encompass over 80 per cent of the total, according to the company.
In the meantime pornography, often considered synonymous with unwanted inbox content, now only accounts for 5 per cent, four times less than the first Spam Index analysis. While the level of pornographic spam still fluctuates - with peaks noticeable over the last 2 years in the months leading up to the summer - as a general trend pornography has reduced by percentage over this time period.
