Spam, Spim And Splog Spins Out Of Control

Spam, Spim And Splog Spins Out Of Control Steeenkin’ spammers are increasingly turning their evil gaze in the direction of SMS, Web-based instant messaging, bloggers and community sites like MySpace.com, according to MessageLabs.

The mail services company said that spammers are looking to bypass e-mail-based antispam measures by targeting spam on “age, location and other characteristics.”

Mark Sunner, chief technical officer at MessageLabs, warned that social-networking sites offer spammers a “new level of convergence and capability to profile people.”

The company also noted an increase in IM spam (”spim”), with spammers sending just a hyperlink, which can direct users lead to a malicious site, or a phishing site.

“We expect more cross-fertilisation of (malicious software) as Yahoo, MSN and Google become one big blob, from an IM standpoint,” Sunner added.

Spam, Spim And Splog Spins Out Of Control MessageLabs reported that spam mail soared a hefty 6.9% in June to make up a massive 64.8% of all global emails sent that month.

Geographically, Israel continues to be the world’s number one spam target, with spam making up a colossal 75.9% of the country’s email traffic, up 11.9% since May.

Ireland was hit by the greatest monthly rise, with spam increasing by 14.1% to make up a spam rate of 59.4%, while Spain saw the sharpest fall, with lucky Spaniards only suffering spam at 24.8% of all emails.

Jargon watch
Splog: Blogging spam
Spim: Instant Messaging spam

MessageLabs