The end of spam?
Microsoft reported recently that 97% of all email is spam. UK security specialists Message Labs largely concurred saying that their figures reveal around 81% of email as being junk – despite Bill Gates having predicted in 2004 that spam would be "a thing of the past" within two years. Both figures are in a way surprisingly large though. Do you feel that you get as much spam now as in the past? Probably not, as modern email filters tend to protect most of us from the sorts of levels of spam inflicted on us in the past.
The spammy spam, such as the Viagra, adult oriented, and just plain dumb scams seems largely to have been weeded out. That said, despite the efficacy of Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail filters and the like, enough must be getting through somehow and enough people acting on it - buying the dodgy drugs or clicking through to the adult sites - to justify the enormous amounts of spam generated everyday.
More of a concern, now, according to Microsoft and Symantec owned Message Labs is ‘scareware’ and the activities of cybercriminals in promoting fake security programs to exploit users' desire to keep their computers protected. People install this software to protect their systems, only to find out that its sole purpose is to try to steal their personal details.
Cliff Evans, head of security and privacy for Microsoft in the UK, told the BBC, "It's criminals playing on people's fears."
Despite concerns about spam and scareware it would appear that computer users, particularly in the UK, are getting better at warding off the perils of malware. Whilst the global average for infected machines is 8.6 for every 1,000 uninfected PCs, in the UK the rate is only 5.7.
The advice from all professionals, however, is clear and consistent. Keep your computer automatically updated, ensuring you have up to date software, be it your applications, your browser or your OS, as most attacks are made on security holes that have already been patched.
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