Symantec says spam is now under 50 percent of all emails sent for the first time since 2003

It would appear that email spam is not as lucrative a business as it used to be.

According to a new Symantec report, junk mail now accounts for 49.7 percent of all emails, the first time that figure has fallen under 50 percent since September 2003.

At its peak, in June 2009, the figure was 90.4 percent, with a shocking 5.7 trillion of the 6.3 trillion emails sent being spam.

The number has been ticking down for months, and was as high as 52.1 percent in April.

Symantec attributed the decline to the increase in legal prosecution against botnets, improved spam filters and blockers and faster reaction times by network providers.

Here is the full security report:

Intelligence Report June 2015

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Jul 2015 21:03

hearme0

This is from Symantec's R&D, which isn't saying much. They're a crap company who's essentially full of shit for boasting this rather negligible change (negligible meaning another vendor might not represent these same findings).

Trust me and all other engineers/admins that spam filters are overwhelmed at how much email is spam. In my opinion on my experience, I'd say 55-60 percent is more "real world accurate".

Symantec, in the words of Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon..."Go spit!"

20.7.2015 00:47 #1

ddp

Symantec is probably right as I used to get a 1000 a week when on dialup, now on dsl I'm getting maybe 10 a week if that.

20.7.2015 11:06 #2

biglo30

Yeah its really slowed down. Im glad, thanks to googles new spam algorithm I dont get any now. My outlook still does tho.

20.7.2015 21:49 #3

Bozobub

Originally posted by ddp: Symantec is probably right as I used to get a 1000 a week when on dialup, now on dsl I'm getting maybe 10 a week if that.
You may very well be correct, but a lot of that is also likely due to how efficient the various email providers have become in filtering out spam., For example, I hardly ever get honest-to-goodness spam in my gmail inbox and conversely, legit mail only rarely ends up sequestered in the Spam folder.

Now, this DOES of course vary wildly by who provides your email. For example, Hotmail is both a notoriously leaky target for spammers and often blocks legit mail without ever notifying users ^^' . I just had to help someone on another forum, who wasn't getting his signup email confirmation, due to Hotmail =p .

20.7.2015 23:12 #4

scorpNZ

A few years ago there was a tech segment on one of our free to air tv channels,one segment was on symantec & their under ground nuclear bunker in the UK.That bunker has a room quite large that houses a very large full width & height screen (it was big),with the earth layed out flat on it ,can't recall what workstations were in front of it & how many,i do recall them tracking viruses & malware in realtime,seems they do email tracking as well & a lot more,take a glance over that security report freaky as

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/
http://www.realmodscene.com/

22.7.2015 14:23 #5

hearme0

But SPAM hasn't slowed down...at least not that much...it's just not reaching the home end user nearly as much. The ISPs and corporate networks are getting hammered though. This I know.

23.7.2015 10:15 #6

Bozobub

Yet, it HAS slowed down, by the numbers given in the article above. And since you mentioned it, I looked those numbers up, and they're just about correct; this I know.

23.7.2015 12:17 #7

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