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Postini's annual Threat Report shows businesses hit with sophisticated attacks

January 30, 2006

 
The Postini 2006 Message Management and Threat Report points to an increasing complexity and amount of attacks coupled with the deep concern of messaging system and security professionals about the crush of message traffic.


 

 

 

 
The report provides a summary of how message threats have evolved over the course of the past year; changes in the regulatory climate that impact communications; how organizations are prioritizing and responding to changes in threats and regulations; and what to expect in message management and security trends for 2006.

Key findings:

-- Spam levels as a percentage of all email traffic remained consistently high - between 75-80 per cent

-- Spam messages by type shows that discount drugs and software (28%) and frauds, scams and phishing (27%) are the top spam categories in 2005, with special offers (20%) and pornography (15%) rounding out the top four

-- Small companies were sent almost 50 spam emails per day per user in 2005, up from 36 in 2004, and four times the number that employees at large companies were sent

-- The publishing industry received 70 spams per user per day, and advertising more than 50 in 2005 while healthcare, insurance, banking and utilities each saw multi-fold increases

-- Last November Postini detected and blocked a massive outbreak of the Sober virus. And quarantined more than 1.2 billion viruses over the next 30 days, making this outbreak the largest virus attack on record

"We expect more sophisticated and damaging threats, proliferation of new communication channels, and archiving and compliance demands of new policies and regulations to converge in 2006 to produce a 'tidal wave' of demands that threaten to overwhelm messaging administrators and security managers," said Quentin Gallivan, president and CEO of Postini.

Message threat expectations for 2006:

-- Threats will continue to accelerate as spammers and hackers exploit multiple vectors of attack, including Instant Messaging, IP telephony and mobile devices

-- Spammers will expand the use of images as a substitute for text to circumvent older spam filters

-- Data retention and archiving activity for email and IM will grow in response to governance policies and regulations, while companies will demand more integrated and less labor intensive solutions

-- Encrypting messages will become standard practice

The annual Message Management and Threat Report will be available on Postini's website starting January 30. To obtain a copy of the report, please visit: www.postini.com/2006ThreatReport

 

 
   

 

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