The evolution of spam has led to a high water mark of 95% of messages being spam. While the group of people creating and delivering spam is fairly small and estimated to be less than a hundred individuals worldwide, their infrastructure is the most capable weapon in their arsenal.
Botnets are being used to deliver spam more than ever. Individual PCs become parts of botnets by running software that has been sent through spam. Typically, by means of an embedded link in the message, sometimes coming in the form of an attachments. The most recent form of malware is being sent using legitimate infrastructure. All major ISPs face the problem of hacked accounts and abused infrastructure. Some are pretty good in cleaning up, some are really simply overwhelmed by the sheer volume of automated attacks on their registration systems.
Some users that receive spam containing those links, also known as abusive messages, blindly open them and will click on the attachment. Based on the human reflex of curiosity, not knowing any better or for other reasons. The fact is that thousands of PCs every day become new infected parts of a giant network of systems abused to deliver abusive messages.
The most infested systems are typically in eastern european countries, such as Russia or Hungary. Other European countries like Denmark, Germany or Spain are other significant sources of spam.
The simplest solution is to implement a reputation based anti-spam system that uses DNS blacklists, also known as DNSRBLs. Those lists can be queried freely within certain limitations and are likely to reduce your inbound volume by up to 80%. That’s is a significant reduction that will save you significant amounts of storage, processing power and ultimately it will make you safer.
To take it one step further with a comprehensive anti-abuse system is the next, logical step. Siekmann Corporations has implemented messaging security for some of the largest ISPs in the world and is a natural fit for your company as well. We’d love to talk to you about your needs!
