95% of email is now spam and it’s still rising

That’s the key finding of its eighth Spamometer survey. 95% of email is now spam, it says, compared with 93% the previous quarter and 70% over the same period last year. The biggest category of spam – medication – accounts for a quarter of all messages received in an email inbox; pornographic emails account for 21%; and undecipherable emails (usually embedded images) 18%. Time appears to be up for the fake watch spam emails that flooded inboxes at the turn of the century: Ipswitch’s latest research finds they now only account for 6% of spam messages. “Spam shows no signs of going away, and continues to be a bugbear for the individual and the organisation alike,” says analyst Quocirca’s service director, Clive Longbottom. “However, there are signs that a higher degree of spam is now coming from groups such as organised crime, rather than individuals out for a quick win, and this type of approach needs to be stopped before it really takes hold.” “Spam remains the scourge of the modern business, resulting in lost productivity in offices throughout the land and shows no sign of disappearing,” comments Ipswitch sales director for Northern Europe, Chris Greaves. “The importance of having an efficient anti-spam filter that is flexible, extensible and provides automatic updates 24x7, is now more important than ever.”