The Spam Plague Heightens

“Spam is back – in e-mail in-boxes and on everyone's minds. Of late, the problem has gotten measurably worse. Worldwide, spam volumes have doubled from last year,” according to Ironport, a spam-filtering firm, and unsolicited junk mail now accounts for more than nine out of every 10 e-mails sent over the Internet.

“Much of that flood is made up of a nettlesome new breed of junk e-mail called image spam, in which the words of the advertisement are part of a picture, often fooling traditional spam detectors that look for telltale phrases. Image spam increased fourfold from last year and now represents 25 percent to 45 percent of all junk e-mail, depending on the day,” Ironport says.