Statistics show that spammers are not giving up

While antispam filters have become more sophisticated in the last year, and spam threats have emerged and dissipated, it is clear that spammers are not giving up the spam fight. The Symantec July 2008 State of Spam Report notes the following trends:

• Hacked personal email account used to scam contacts
• Spammers simplify email harvesting technique
• Japanese adult dating spam takes a new twist
• China earthquake tragedy used to spread viruses
• Olympics related lottery scam emerges
• Spam targeting Japanese mobile phone market
• Bogus news events lure innocent victims

Regions of Origin

Region of origin represents the percentage of spam messages reported coming from certain regions and countries in the last 30 days.

Global Spam Categories

Spam category data is collected from classifications on messages passing through the Symantec Probe Network.

Source: Symantec’s “The State of Spam A Monthly Report – July 2008”.