Spam Reached 96 Percent Of Email in Q4, 2007

Global spam levels measured by Commtouch swelled through the fourth quarter of 2007, hitting a high of 96 percent of all email in October 2007.

While we can’t speak for the rest of the Internet, we do see the inbox sift out roughly six good messages out of 300 at any given time at SecurityProNews.

That puts us in the neighborhood email security vendor Commtouch observed. Global spam levels measured by the company for the year hit an astonishing peak of 96 percent.

Astonishing unless one is sitting in the lead-lined writing room at our international HQ, watching the wonderful SpamBayes plug-in go to work on an inbox freshly opened in the morning. Commtouch said on their blog they “monitor unfiltered data streams of Internet email traffic, not including internal corporate traffic. This open traffic is analyzed to find the ratio of spam to legitimate email messages.”

The cruft collecting in inboxes, unless one has a product cleaning it on a continual basis, can contain any number of unwanted pests. Minor annoyances like plaintext stock-pumping emails pale in comparison to the malware-linked spam leading to infections and possible takeover by a remote server.

Those takeovers tend to connect a victimized PC to a broad network of other corrupted machines. These devices function as a botnet, which increasingly in these times provide outlets for the distribution of the Storm worm, a ferociously prolific pest that could be on millions of computers worldwide.

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Sunbelt, Dell Unsheathe Ninja Blade

An email security appliance from Sunbelt debuted on Dell’s PowerEdge server line; the device takes the spam fight to the gateway and off the desktop.

We have held the opinion for some time that the email security fight should not be waged on the desktops of people, whether a single at-home individual or a multinational corporation with thousands of email users.

Various purveyors of security solutions think the same way. Slam the door shut on spam, phishing, and malware link-bearing messages at the gateway, rather than worrying about someone clicking on something they should not in the email client.

Sunbelt Software and Dell paired on one such gateway approach. Their newly released Ninja Blade device incorporates antispam technology from Cloudmark, and antivirus from BitDefender to complement the Message Transfer Agent on-board.

Sunbelt also noted Ninja Blade works real-time with Active Directory and LDAP, which will speed up the initial configuration and deployment period needed to place it in service in those environments.

The launch puts Sunbelt in direct competition with one of the bigger fish in the email security appliance market, that being Barracuda Networks. Sunbelt CEO Alex Eckelberry said in a statement Ninja Blade would have a competitive price point; the four Ninja Blade products start at $1,995, plus support and maintenance plans.

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Phishing Scams – How To Verify A Site Certificate

Some malicious individuals use phishing scams to set up convincing spoofs of legitimate Web sites. They then try to trick you into visiting these Web sites and disclosing personal information, such your credit card number.

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to help protect yourself from these and other types of attacks.

What is a spoofing attack?

Spoofing attacks are commonly used in conjunction with phishing scams. The spoofed site is usually designed to look like the legitimate site, sometimes using components from the legitimate site. The best way to verify whether you are at a spoofed site is to verify the certificate.

Do not rely on the text in the address bar as an indication that you are at the site you think you are. There are several ways to get the address bar in a browser to display something other than the site you are on.

How to verify a site certificate

Always verify the security certificate issued to a site before submitting any personal information. Before you submit any personal information, ensure that you are indeed on the website you intend to be on.

In Internet Explorer, you can do this by checking the yellow lock icon on the status bar.

This symbol signifies that the website uses encryption to help protect any sensitive personal information—credit card number, Social Security number, payment details—that you enter.

Secure site lock icon. If the lock is closed, then the site uses encryption. Double-click the lock icon to display the security certificate for the site. This certificate is proof of the identity for the site.

When you check the certificate, the name following Issued to should match the site you think you are on. If the name differs, you may be on a spoofed site.

If you are not sure whether a certificate is legitimate, do not enter any personal information. Play it safe and leave the Web site.

Legitimate certificate. When new subscribers sign up for MSN services, they can match the Issued to domain name (msn.com) to the Web site domain name (also msn.com).

Also, be cautious about clicking links in e-mail messages or in online ads from retailers you don’t recognize or trust. If you have any doubt about a link, do not click it.

Instead, type the Web site address into the address bar of your Web browser, or try to confirm that the link is legitimate. Remember, if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Get the Phishing Filter

Phishing Filter is designed to warn or block you from potentially harmful Web sites. It’s available in Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Windows Vista. It is also available in the new Windows Live Toolbar for users of Internet Explorer 6 and above.

Top 12 Windows Spam Filters

1. POPFile – Spam Filter

POPFile is a powerful and flexible email classification POP and NNTP proxy that you can use to filter spam efficiently and categorize good mail automatically. Unfortunately, POPFile can grow a bit heavy on memory and cpu load if you have trained on lots of mail.

2. Death2Spam – Spam Filter

Death2Spam is an extremely accurate, safe and easy to use spam (and virus) filtering service that seamlessly and silently eliminates junk mail before it even reaches your email program.

3. eXpurgate – Spam Filter

eXpurgate is an effortless but highly effective spam (and virus) filtering service. Its only real shortcoming is that eXpurgate relies on forwarding and requires two different email accounts.

4. SpamPal – Spam Filter

SpamPal makes it easy to use spam blacklists with any email account. Bayesian and scoring filters add further spam protection.

5. MailWasher Pro – Spam Filter

MailWasher Pro is a highly competent, usable, secure and time-saving spam filtering tool. Combining multiple approaches, MailWasher Pro achieves a solid spam detection rate and protects you from viruses to some extent, too.

6. Spamihilator – Spam Filter

Spamihilator is a pretty, easy to use anti-spam tool that works with any email client and, thanks to Bayesian filters, has a good detection rate.

7. K9 – Spam Filter

K9 is a wonderfully precise, easy to use and fast learning Bayesian spam filtering tool. It’s a pity this gem only works with POP accounts and lacks remote administration.

8. Cactus Spam Filter – Spam Filter

Cactus Spam Filter is a really easy to use and pretty precise spam filter. It’s a pity it only works with POP accounts and does not leverage its power for further pre-sorting the good mail.

9. Spam Bully – Spam Filter

Spam Bully is a great and efficient anti-spam tool. If you train it well, Spam Bully can rid your Inbox of unwanted emails almost completely.

10. Spamato – Spam Filter

Spamato filters POP and IMAP accounts for spam with the potential for high precision and plug-ins that make it easy to use in Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. Unfortunately, Spamato can be a bit overwhelming with its multitude of options and little help.

11. Spam Interceptor – Spam Filter

Spam Interceptor is an elegant, easy to use and flexible, but most of all effective spam filtering solution. Its combination of multiple strategies works great — unfortunately for POP accounts only.

12. SpamExperts Desktop – Spam Filter

SpamExperts Desktop identifies and eliminates spam precisely and, thanks to its plugging right into the email transport, works without configuration with any email program and just about any email account.

It’s a pity SpamExperts Desktop is a tad slow to process mail (though that can be countered by having it download mail periodically), and the process that lets you correct the filter’s errors could be improved.