Spam levels rose sharply in March, according to messaging security and hosting company IE Internet, but the month showed a continued decline in virus attacks.
“More than 67pc of emails sent to Irish users in March were spam emails, a sharp rise from the 60pc we reported for February,” stated Ken O’Driscoll, chief technical officer with IE Internet. “And France is now figuring for the first time as a major originator of spam, accounting for more than 12pc of spam sent in March.”
O’Driscoll said the rate of virus attacks were relatively low at 2pc. However, there was a dramatic rise in the ‘i-Frame’ tag that IE Internet noticed in February, which prompts users to open a new browser window. “More than 26pc of virus emails used this particular mechanism,” he said.
The main sources of spam in March were: US – 38.12pc; China – 23.08pc; France – 12.43pc; Poland – 11.89pc; and Singapore – 14.48pc.
Virus infection rates were 2.06pc, with the three most common viruses being W32/Netsky.BR at 40.58pc, HTML/IFrame at 26.09pc and W32/Netsky.P at 13.04pc.
By Niall Byrne
