A few weeks ago I opened up my email, and there was four spam messages that had been caught by gmail. That’s a little more than normal, so I went to investigate. All four had an image attached, and they all said basically the same thing “Buy (Insert prescription drug name here) Cheap”
I began to wonder how gmail ever even caught this type of spam? I mean it’s just a blank email with an image attached. I send emails out like that all the time. How would an email that I would send out be any different than a spam email?
A quick search turned this up Borderware. They make an email firewall appliance called MXtreme. It is said to block up to 98% of incoming image spam. Their website has this to say about image spam:
“Spam message volumes have doubled over the past 12 months and it looks like it will triple in the near future as the situation is worsened by the recent emergence of image spam. Through the BorderWare Security Network (BSN), it has been observed that image spam currently accounts for at least 35% of the overall spam volumes and this trend is on the rise. BorderWare data indicates that there are more than 25 image spam campaigns under way at any given time. As a result, organizations are struggling with lost productivity, end-user frustration and the need to protect against this latest threat in spam attacks.”
That is some pretty shocking data. But, like I have said in the past, spam only works if people keep buying stuff from it. So while MXtreme may knock down 98% of spam, not buying from spammers will eventually stop 100% of spam.
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