There has been little change once again in the virus and spam statistics for April. By comparison, this time last year there had already been a number of big virus outbreaks, leading SoftScan to conclude that virus writers seem to be unnaturally quiet and that spam levels appear to have stabilised in recent months.

"When you look at the data," comments a SoftScan spokesperson, "there has been little change over the last eighteen months in the percentage of spam. The only real change has been in the goods and services the spam emails offer. Although some organisations have performed a great deal of research into this, it does not increase spam detection rates and is of little consequence to email users, all they want to see is an end to spam in their inbox."
Spam accounted for 85 per cent of total email traffic scanned by SoftScan during April. At the end of January this year spam levels were slightly higher at 87 per cent, but the underlying trend is approximately 85 per cent. With no major outbreaks this year, virus levels have remained static too, although for how long remains to be seen.

Viruses accounted for 0.55 per cent of all email traffic in April. The top five virus families for April were:

• phishing 43 per cent
  
• netsky 28 per cent
  
• mytob 13 per cent
  
• html.iframe 5 per cent
  
• nyrem 5 per cent

With no major outbreaks, the top five virus families and their proportional percentages have changed little so far this year. Until now Netsky has remained in the number one spot, demonstrating as SoftScan pointed out in February that users need to check and clean their machines, since the high percentage rate is not down to new infections. However financial motivation has once again proved too much temptation for hackers and phishing is now in the number one spot.

Related links: (Open in a new window.)
www.softscan.co.uk

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