Symantec: Spam growth slowing at last

But another company sees more spam aimed at large enterprises

By John E. Dunn

January 12, 2005 12:00 PM ET

TechWorld.com - The volume of e-mail made up of spam has stabilized, according to figures from Symantec Corp.'s Brightmail unit.
December's figures, culled from traffic traveling through Brightmail's servers, showed that 67% of e-mail is now spam, identical to the previous month. That was after three months when spam volumes were stable at 66%.
While that is still equivalent to tens of millions of messages per day, the statistics could come as relief after recent predictions that spam would soon account for nearly all e-mail sent.
According to the San Francisco-based company's figures, the volume of spam e-mail had crossed the 50% barrier by July 2003.
Scams and fraud now account for 24% of spam, making it the fastest-growing type of spam. Other prominent categories include product advertising (23%), pornography (14%) and health remedies (11%).
The new figures are broadly consistent with those from rival antispam vendor MessageLabs Inc., which released figures for November showing a spam volume rate of almost 74%.
The two companies aren't entirely in step, however. The MessageLabs figures for July claimed that spam had consumed 94% of all e-mail sent, so the more recent figure would actually represent a significant fall. The New York-based company suggested that past dips in spam volume have corresponded to legal measures enacted around the globe to curb its rise.
Tumbleweed Communications Corp., which analyzes traffic traveling through its managed service hubs, agreed that the volume of spam reaching Internet service providers may have eased. By contrast, the Redwood City, Calif.-based company said it has seen an increase in spam targeting large enterprises.
"As more ISPs introduce spam filtering, spammers are looking for new ways to get through to people, and that means spam is moving from ISPs to corporate e-mail networks," said David Brunswick, Tumbleweed's EMEA technical director.

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