Few can deny that spam continues growing at a frightening pace — Cisco earlier said it’s seen spam levels up 30 percent from a year ago. But not only is spam becoming ever more prolific, it’s also doing a better job at disguising itself.
That has even users familiar with spam and its tricks more often confusing the unwanted, often malware-laden messages with legitimate email. And as a result, more users and their systems are potentially at risk from malware or information theft.
Harris Interactive and Cloudmark took a look at the trends and what they mean for consumer and enterprise email users. eSecurity Planet has the story.
Spam is not only growing in volume, but it’s also becoming harder to distinguish from legitimate email, according to an online survey of U.S. consumers by Harris Interactive.
In the Harris survey, 42 percent of U.S. adults said they’ve received more spam over the past 12 months than they had previously. Complicating matters, the Harris survey found that among U.S. adults who had ever received a spam email, 33 percent said that they found it more difficult to figure out what’s a legitimate mailing and what’s a message from a scammer or rogue marketer.