Spam is Getting Worse but We Don't Know How Much Worse
A couple of studies have come out with different estimates on the rate of spam growth this year. Barracuda analyzed over a billion messages and found an 85-90% increase in spam; Symantec's measurements show a 56% increase. Not that the 30% or so difference is all that important at the end of the day to most of us. The trend is in the wrong direction and the increase is substantial in either case.
As noted in Ars Technica:
It's hard to say which company's numbers are more accurate—"Different monitors can legitimately get different results," University of Calgary computer science professor John Aycock told us. What's important are overall trends. One thing that everyone agrees on is that spam continues to morph in an attempt to get through filters. Both Symantec and Barracuda say that they have observed an increased use in file attachments in 2007, like PDFs and images, and security software vendor MXSweep says that spammers are also focusing on sending MP3 and Excel spam.
A more interesting measure, an much more difficult to make, is how much spam actually gets through. That's the measure of the hassle most of us feel.
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