Image-based spam comes under the business radar
1 min read
A full 50% of mid-size to large companies in the UK are not coping with image-based spam, according to a survey by Israeli network and email security specialist PineApp.
This despite the fact that 97% have anti-spam solutions in place – and with image spam now accounting for up to 50% of all spam, PineApp warns companies are leaving themselves exposed to the threat of business downtime.
“Embedding or attaching images such as .gif or .bmp files containing unwanted content into email is not new, but it has grown fast – and our survey shows that it is not being dealt with effectively,” says Steve Cornish, UK sales and marketing director at PineApp.
“With spammers always looking for new ways to bypass anti-spam solutions, such as attaching PDF files, the industry is struggling to keep up.”
In particular, the research highlights two major new problems: the burdens on bandwidth and storage. Typical image-based spam messages are more than three times larger than their predecessors.
Other issues noted by they study include user frustration (44%), increased exposure to malware (42%), loss of productivity (36%) and legal consequences (32%).
Traditional anti-spam technologies such as content-based, Bayesian, Heuristic and URL filtering, are not consistently able to prevent this type of spam.
PineApp’s solution is based on its RPD (recurrent pattern detection) technology that instantly recognises new outbreaks, regardless of format. This increases detection rates and maintains low false positives, says Cornish.
