That is according to UK-based e-mail filtering company MessageLabs, which claims that there was a 77 percent increase in global spam volumes this year. The firm said that in May, the global spam to e-mail ratio exceeded 50 percent for the first time, with the average ratio for the year being one spam for every 2.5 normal e-mails received. This compared to 1 in 11 during 2002.
But possibly the most worrying statistic in the report was a claim that more than two-thirds of all spam was sent through hijacked computers, thanks in part to malware like the Sobig worm which represents a new breed of cyber-pest that blends spamming with viruses.
"Sobig.F, the pre-eminent example of this convergence, sought not only to infect a machine and propagate further through mass mailing techniques, but to compromise systems by exploiting open proxies," commented Mark Sunner, chief technology officer at MessageLabs "This backdoor route turns infected PCs into spam relay engines -- causing individual users concern, as well as security breaches and lost bandwidth and productivity for organisations."
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