Users spend 5-10 Minutes Everyday simply Dealing with Spam

IronPort Systems, a Cisco business unit and a leading provider of enterprise spam, virus and spyware protection says that the spam attacks have increased tremendously. In fact, an average user spends nearly 5-10 minutes a day dealing with spam. The company has unveiled its 2008 Internet Security Trends Report, in which it highlights the key security trends of today. This report says that during 2007, IronPort’s Threat Operations Center measured a 253 percent increase in dirty spam, which means spam containing links that pointed to known malware sites.
Talking about spam and internet security Tom Gillis, Vice President of Marketing for IronPort said, “2007 marks a turning point. Just when malware design seemed to have reached a plateau, new attack techniques have burst forth, some so complex — and obviously not the work of novices-they could have only been designed by means of sophisticated research and development.”
Furthermore, the report says that spam, virus and malware attacks are costly. The clean up cost may go up even by $500 per desktop. That is actually even more costly than the recovery of lost data.
Moreover IronPort Systems has found out the following points:
Spam volume increased 100 percent, to more than 120 billion spam messages daily. That’s about 20 spam messages per day for every person on the planet. IronPort measurements have shown that enterprise users get anywhere from 100 to 1,000 spam messages per day.
Spam has become less focused on selling product and more focused on growing spam networks. Earlier versions of spam attacks were primarily selling some type of product (pharmaceuticals, low interest mortgages, etc.). However, today’s spam includes an increasing amount of links that point to websites distributing malware. This malware is often designed to further extend the size and scale of the botnet that originated the spam in the first place.
Viruses are less visible, but increasing in number. Virus writers have evolved from the previous mass distribution attacks, such as “Netsky” and “Bagel.” In 2007, viruses were much more polymorphic and typically associated with the proliferation of very sophisticated botnets, such as “Feebs” and “Storm.” In one week alone, the IronPort Threat Operation Center detected more than six variants of the Feebs virus, each of which began spreading exponentially before signatures could be created.
The duration of a particular attack technique decreased substantially. In previous years, spammers would employ a typical technique, such as the use of embedded images, for months. More recent techniques, such as MP3 spam, lasted only three days. But there are more of these smaller attacks. Where as in 2006 image spam was the primary new technique, 2007 saw more than 20 different attachment types used in a variety of short-lived attack techniques.