Clearswift’s Spam Index, the industry’s most in-depth study of unsolicited e-mail, reveals spammers appear to have turned their backs on pornography, with lewd mails in decline over the last two years. However, sex still sells, with health care 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, health care and financial spam together accounted for only 39% of all spam e-mails. Yet according to last month’s analysis of more than 20,000 individual mails, these two sectors encompass more than 80% of the total.
In the meantime, pornography, often considered synonymous with unwanted inbox content, now only accounts for 5%, four times less than the first Spam Index analysis. Whilst the level of pornographic spam still fluctuates — with peaks noticeable over the last two years in the months leading up to the summer — as a general trend pornography has reduced by percentage over this time period.
“Perhaps it’s no surprise that porn’s on the wane,” said Alyn Hockey, director of research, Clearswift. “Even the most basic spam filters can pick up sexual images, but it’s far easier to disguise spam selling health care products as legitimate mail.”
The figures would suggest spammers have settled upon health care and financial offers as their tried and tested money earners, preying on people too embarrassed to discuss sensitive difficulties with their doctor, or all too eager to sign up to untested savings plans.
“It’s a relief that our inboxes aren’t as peppered with filth as they once were,” continued Alyn, “but we shouldn’t become complacent. Viruses and spyware use spam e-mail to spread, so businesses of all sizes must ensure they deploy the most robust content filtering software possible to ensure all spam is weeded out.”
The first few Spam Indexes saw large variations from month to month, but in recent times trends are increasingly difficult to spot — spam activity is currently characterized by a series of bizarre one-offs which appear for a month or two then slip off the radar completely.
Dog-related spam, for example, made a fleeting appearance in May and has since almost disappeared, while this month, cigars and Egyptian sheets have made their mark for the first time.
Luxury goods remain popular — replica jewelry, watches and clothing all increased over the last four weeks, and there have also been notable rises in fake eBay scams.
Clearswift Strangest Spam of the Month
Two stand out in June:
* Hair thickening cream, proclaiming: “Have thicker hair within seconds! Click here for a free sample”
* Christian dating sites, offering love for religious people who spent Valentine’s Day at home
About the Spam Index
The spam categorization statistics were extracted from the millions of spam e-mails harvested by Clearswift’s seed accounts on a weekly basis. They are collated and analyzed using Clearswift’s spamActive service, which is an integral component of the multilayered anti-spam protection offered by MIMEsweeper for SMTP 5.1. Updated eight times daily, spamActive routinely extracts spam terms, sender domains, URLs and subject lines, which can be automatically downloaded to update customers’ e-mail policies.
About Clearswift
Clearswift secures content and protects against digital attacks by enforcing security policies that increase productivity, reduce IT costs and create a safer business environment. Its world-leading business is founded on providing total content security for e-mail and Web.
The Internet is an invaluable business tool, but with it comes a harrowing collection of threats. Protecting against the circulation of inappropriate images and text, spam, breaches of confidentiality, and viruses is now mission critical.
Clearswift enables organizations to protect themselves against digital attacks, meet legal and regulatory requirements, implement productivity-saving policies, and manage intellectual property passing through their network.
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