The last six months have seen a gradual decrease in the amount of SPAM and malware hitting my account. An average of 44.3 SPAM messages per day (SM/D) were blocked by the SPAM filter for my account in October.
This is a decline in SM/D from a high of 77.5 in May. This is also below the year-to-date SM/D of 54.7.
While the overall SM/D trend may be declining another trend is developing that is more dangerous. Since August 2009, the amount of SPAM containing malware has increased dramatically. For the first six months of 2009, there were only 24 SPAM messages that contained malware. This represents .11 malware-laden messages per day. Since August 1st there have been 188 SPAM messages containing malware to date. This equates to 1.8 SPAM messages with a malware payload per day. This represents a 16X increase in malware trying to attack my PC daily. The most common malware was the Bredo family of Trojans, followed by the Kryptik Trojans and then various Fake Alert Trojans.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.