Postini Report Reveals 91% of Emails Classified as Spam Amid Surge

No, you're not imagining things. You have been getting a lot of spam lately. That's because digital miscreants are using contaminated images and stealthy malware to unleash unsolicited email at unprecedented levels, according to new research from San Carlos, Calif.-based Postini Inc. and UK-based Sophos. Attackers use these tactics to hijack computers and turn them into spam relays, often without the user's knowledge. "Bot activity is the major driver here," said Daniel Druker, Postini's executive vice president of marketing. "Bot-infected machines become part of these zombie PC armies that are used to push out spam."

Postini has watched spam levels spike by nearly 60% in the last eight weeks, and Druker said 91% of all email is now spam. Over the past 12 months, the daily volume of spam rose by 120%, he added. Postini monitors 10 million users across 36,000 businesses worldwide. Of that number, the average user gets seven wanted emails a day, while Postini blocks 77 unwanted emails a day. "That's for the average user," he said. "This is an all-time high, and it shows that spammers are increasingly aggressive and sophisticated in their techniques."

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