Share of spam in e-mail traffic registers a five-year low: Report

A Kaspersky Lab report details share of spam in total e-mail traffic for 2012.

According to a Kaspersky Lab data, share of spam in e-mail traffic slumped to 72.1 percent in 2012 – lowest in last five years. The share saw year-on-year fall of 8.2 percent as compared to 2011.

Kaspersky Lab says the slump in spam volume is due to improved anti-spam protection in e-mail systems and implementation of DKIM signature policies that verifies the domain from which e-mails are sent. The slump is also due to availability of affordable advertising on legal platforms.

The proportion of e-mails with malicious attachments was very less though as such e-mails had 3.4 percent share. The data ranks China as the top source for spamming, as it accounts for 19.5 percent of all spam mails. India ranks third behind the U.S. with 9.7 percent. Overall, Asia accounted more than half of the world's spam.

The report says India is among top target for phishing sites as the country ranks sixth. The list is however dominated by developed countries.

Source: Business Today