We all hate e-mail spam. Even though my e-mail providers have pretty good spam filters, I get over 100 spam messages a day that make it into my in-boxes. According to MessageLabs, the percentage of worldwide e-mail traffic that is spam has been declining slightly over the past few years, dropping from 86% in 2006 to 81% in 2008.

However, MessageLabs reported a 5% spike in spam over the past month. In May, over 90% of worldwide e-mail traffic was spam. The worst-hit area was Hong Kong, where 92% of all e-mail received was spam. Other highly-spammed areas include China, the UK, Australia, and Japan.
In the US, they estimate that 87% of all e-mail is spam.

Where does it come from? Over 31% from Europe, followed by Asia (28%), South America (21%), and North America (13%). Over half of spam is sent through botnets (collections of computers numbering in the thousands that send messages without the computer owner’s knowledge).

Here are a few steps you can take to reduce spam:

• Many e-mail programs provide filtering services that analyze e-mail messages and route suspected spam messages to a Spam or Junk E-mail folder in your account. Turn on such options in your e-mail programs.
• Never click on a link from within a spam e-mail message, even to request “removal” from their mailing list, as this verifies your e-mail address as valid and will increase the amount of spam you receive.
• Avoid posting your e-mail address in a public place. Many programs at this moment are scouring Web sites and databases looking for the “@” symbol to harvest e-mail addresses. If you need to provide your address in some public forum, type it as “my-address AT gmail DOT com” instead of using the symbols “@” and “.” There are other methods like this you can try.
• Read privacy information carefully when completing online forms that request your e-mail address, and exercise your choice.
• Use a secondary e-mail address for potentially spam-generating activities.
• Do not open or reply to e-mails from unknown addresses and never open attachments unless you know the person who sent it. Setting an automatic response while you are away can have the unfortunate side-effect of verifying your e-mail address to every spammer that sends you spam.
• Turn off your e-mail client’s ability to “preview” e-mail messages. Spam e-mail messages often have links embedded that report back to a Web server as soon as you preview the message.
• Consider adjusting the security settings in your Web browser. For a higher level of security, have your browser disallow accepting cookies, listing your name and other personal information in your browser profile, and filling in form fields for you. This will help reduce the amount of personal information transmitted to sites, but at the expense of full functionality.

Also, be on guard to avoid phishing scams which a lot of spam contains.

Bookmark: